why does my mum think she has lots of houses.

[gem2014]

Hi, is the following common and if so how have you dealt with this.

Mum lost dad about 30yrs ago. She stayed in her home until 18yrs ago and then moved 12 miles away to live closer to me. When she first moved out here the plan was to buy a larger property and mum live with us. So we looked around a few houses but found that this wouldn't work. Luckily some new small houses were being built at the end of my street [1996] and mum bought one and lived there happily. Since the onset of dementia she now needs reminders to look around her home to know where she is. She comes out with things like, 'I've just got back from my other house [ usually meaning one in another village where we looked at a property], not the house she owns/owned. Other statements are, 'I back here now cause Sarah [ my sister] and her husband are back now so I had to move out'. 'So and so are stopping here tonight so I better go back to my other house'.

Sound familiar?

 

[WILLIAMR]

Hi, is the following common and if so how have you dealt with this.

Mum lost dad about 30yrs ago. She stayed in her home until 18yrs ago and then moved 12 miles away to live closer to me. When she first moved out here the plan was to buy a larger property and mum live with us. So we looked around a few houses but found that this wouldn't work. Luckily some new small houses were being built at the end of my street [1996] and mum bought one and lived there happily. Since the onset of dementia she now needs reminders to look around her home to know where she is. She comes out with things like, 'I've just got back from my other house [ usually meaning one in another village where we looked at a property], not the house she owns/owned. Other statements are, 'I back here now cause Sarah [ my sister] and her husband are back now so I had to move out'. 'So and so are stopping here tonight so I better go back to my other house'.

Sound familiar?

I don't know the answer to your question.
A man was in the opposite bed to my father in an elderly persons ward when he was about 85 and the gent opposite had dementia and was going on about his houses in about 20 different towns in the UK.
He then kept on going on the nurses were killing him and he wanted to borrow Dad's phone to call the police in Plymouth.
The hospital they were in was in the Birmingham area.
Dad took his phone to the nurses station as he did not want the gent to make silly phone calls while he was sleeping.
The gent kept on waking him saying things like he has got to organise a funeral.
At about 11pm Dad went to the nurse and said he did sympathise but if they did not move him they will be getting another patient with mental health problems.
A bed was found for him in a general ward.
At about 4am the nurse said his results were ok and he asked if he could go home.
The nurse said yes as long as somebody would collect him.
I arrived at about 4.30am and he could not get down to the car fast enough.

Oddly an article appeared a few weeks later in the paper about middle of the night discharges being so bad at that hospital.

I hope my father's discharge was not among the quoted stats.
My view is an elderly person should not be turned out of a hospital in the middle of the night but if they want to go and they are ok from a health point of view and a responsible person is collecting them they should be allowed to go.

William

 

[LAP]

Hi, is the following common and if so how have you dealt with this.

Mum lost dad about 30yrs ago. She stayed in her home until 18yrs ago and then moved 12 miles away to live closer to me. When she first moved out here the plan was to buy a larger property and mum live with us. So we looked around a few houses but found that this wouldn't work. Luckily some new small houses were being built at the end of my street [1996] and mum bought one and lived there happily. Since the onset of dementia she now needs reminders to look around her home to know where she is. She comes out with things like, 'I've just got back from my other house [ usually meaning one in another village where we looked at a property], not the house she owns/owned. Other statements are, 'I back here now cause Sarah [ my sister] and her husband are back now so I had to move out'. 'So and so are stopping here tonight so I better go back to my other house'.

Sound familiar?

Hi. My husband diagnosed with alzheimers in 2011 is convinced that he lived in our bungalow with his mother years and years ago and that it is HIS, not ours. In fact, his mother died before we bought the bungalow in 1991.Yet, he would argue the point that he lived in it with her, except of course I do not enter into an argument with him about this. I often wonder where his father was when they supposedly lived here!!

My daughter and I find this very strange. Although he does know [ at times] that it is our bungalow, but when he tells me that it is HIS and I don't have any ownership with him I just try to change the subject.

This dreadful disease brings so many problems doesn't it.

 

[2jays]

I think you may find the answer in the so bizarre thread. There is a very good video that may explain


Sent from my iPhone using Talking Point

 

[Ann Mac]

My Mil often asks to go home, or to the 'other house' that she says she usually lives in, and she has also had periods of time where she is convinced that our house, where she now lives with us, used to belong to her late in-laws - the fact that their house was in Ireland, and we are in Wales (and she knows we are in Wales) has no impact on this belief She also thinks this house is a hotel or B&B, where she is just staying, and has at times informed me that she is 'enjoying' staying here, but would like to go back to Runcorn, London, and several other places where she has NEVER lived, and has at best, a very loose connection to (as in a distant relative once lived in one of these places, or she once stayed there for a weekend - or even the film she watched the night before was based in one of the locations). To add to the confusion, she will ask also to go back to other house, that looks like this one - right down to the same pictures on the wall, and same plants on the patio - to the 'other Ann', and where she believes she usually lives. Its becoming less likely, these days, as the dementia progresses, that when she asks to go home, she means the house she lived in for 40-odd years, prior to moving in with us.

Its so hard to figure out what she means or believes, at any given time, and respond appropriately

 

[marionq]

Oh Lord, I have this stuff every day and often don't know whether to laugh or cry. My husband frequently asks me if I have return tickets ( starting and finishing points unknown). He asks if the properties we own in Spain, France and this morning Canada (new one to me ) have been sold yet and what has been done with the money. Anyone listening to this who didn't know him would think it was all true. It is so bizarre.

 

[MrsTerryN]

We were talking about mums house a few months ago. We were discussing the value and I commented that a house similar to hers and in same area went for just under one million. She was horrified "it is definitely worth two million" . Umm OK mum.

 

[Lisajk]

Goodness me, we have exactly the same! MIL is convinced this isn't her house - she keeps saying she wants to go home (to the house she lived in with her parents before she was married 60 years ago.)
She even asks the neighbours when they're are going 'home' and if they've been given dates for discharge etc. The neighbours are very good and just change the subject, it's difficult for them to understand. She is utterly convinced the whole street 'moved here' when she had her Stroke, and they're all waiting for her to get better before they can move back. Heartbreaking, and frustrating!
She's lived in this house for over 20 years yet remains adamant that this isn't home.
It's a conversation we have daily.

 

[gem2014]

Thank you all for your comments. It's nice to know I'm not alone on this one.

 

[Aries]

Hi, just wanted to say this topic is a huge problem with my
Mum, she phones us every night saying she wants to go back home, to her other house, she lives in her bungalow where shes been since 1951 and not lived anywhere else.
The problem is she gets really angry, and says she will have to get a taxi if we wont take her back to her other home. I don't know where her other home is, maybe her parents house before she was married, but this goes on every single day!

 

[elizabeth20]

My mum also asks to go home frequently and says that she never sees anyone in this place and doesn't like using the toilet as all the other people use it. I used to think that she thought she was still in hospital having spent 4 days there in June but not so sure. She talks about home as her childhood home and I think she is just wanting to go back to when she was happy and content. She has lived in her house for 50 years 40 with dad who died in 2000 and she never mentions him it's as though her marriage is erased and she is a small child again she was desperate to phone her mum the other day and today stood up to leave when her grandson was leaving and when he asked where she was going she said I'll just get my things and you can drop me off at home!

 

[katie1]

We regularly have this type of thing with my Dad. He often rings me up (I am his daughter, I live nearby)and asks when I can go and get him /tells me he is ready/ asks when he can go home/ he's had a nice time but who does he pay /is it time to go back now?
He talks about the other people in the house (there aren't any) and has on occasion asked Mum if the people upstairs have gone now/ who does he pay/ could she please find out when his wife is coming (she is his wife) and so on.
From reading this post it seems a common phase/state of this condition
I don't really know if it is possible to try and analyse it, it is confusion, a feeling of being in the wrong place, half knowing something isn't quite right but not being able to control or understand it. My Mum tries to patiently erasure him, or let him talk about whatever he has on his mind.
But as anyone on here knows that just isn't easy.