Forgetting Home

[AngelaW]

Hi all,

I've signed up to this website today as I really need some advice. My nan has Alzheimer's and her mental state has been rapidly declining for the last few months.

She is currently living alone in an assisted living flat, where she has been happy for over 2 years. She goes down to the communal lounge daily for her lunch, plus other activities, and otherwise spends most of her time in her flat.

Over the last month or so she has become convinced that she isn't at home. She will sit in the dark in the evenings as they aren't her lights, won't put the tv on as it's not hers, and we think she is sleeping in her chair as she doesn't want to get in someone else's bed. She has all her belongings around her and she does recognise everything as being hers, but she is adamant that she wants to go back to where she was. Unfortunately we can't decipher where she wants to be, as she doesn't remember anywhere previous to her current home.

Its got to a point where she is constantly (every 5 minutes, all day) phoning family members, begging them to take her home. My sister visited tonight and said she was sobbing and saying she just wanted to go home.

My family and I have tried to reassure her that she is safe and she is in the right place, but she doesn't believe us.

Has anyone been in a similar situation to this that can offer any advice? She must be so scared and we just don't know how to reassure her.

We are in the process of getting her moved to a more secure nursing home, where she will have more company, but its a slow process.

Any help/advice of how to comfort her in the meantime would be gratefully received.

Thank you,
Angela

 

[Kevinl]

It's the fear that something similar might happen to us and that's what keeps me living in the same house. It would make sense to downsize now to somewhere easier to manage so before it all goes too far my wife has some chance to get used to the new place as her home and not where we have lived and brought up our children for the past 25 years. Although she never goes out alone I don't know how to explain the "this is our home now" thing, getting her to accept new clothes we buy for her are hers is hard enough. Fortunately when my Mum moved in here a few years back (she has since died) when I asked her about her house she said it probably got bombed in the war, I walked into the kitchen and just laughed my head off, bless, it made sense to her

 

[golfio26]

Hi all,

I've signed up to this website today as I really need some advice. My nan has Alzheimer's and her mental state has been rapidly declining for the last few months.

She is currently living alone in an assisted living flat, where she has been happy for over 2 years. She goes down to the communal lounge daily for her lunch, plus other activities, and otherwise spends most of her time in her flat.

Over the last month or so she has become convinced that she isn't at home. She will sit in the dark in the evenings as they aren't her lights, won't put the tv on as it's not hers, and we think she is sleeping in her chair as she doesn't want to get in someone else's bed. She has all her belongings around her and she does recognise everything as being hers, but she is adamant that she wants to go back to where she was. Unfortunately we can't decipher where she wants to be, as she doesn't remember anywhere previous to her current home.

Its got to a point where she is constantly (every 5 minutes, all day) phoning family members, begging them to take her home. My sister visited tonight and said she was sobbing and saying she just wanted to go home.

My family and I have tried to reassure her that she is safe and she is in the right place, but she doesn't believe us.

Has anyone been in a similar situation to this that can offer any advice? She must be so scared and we just don't know how to reassure her.

We are in the process of getting her moved to a more secure nursing home, where she will have more company, but its a slow process.

Any help/advice of how to comfort her in the meantime would be gratefully received.

Thank you,
Angela

How very sad for her & you! Can you get GP or CPN to do an urgent assessment to get her into a more secure CH. Sounds as though things need to be moved quickly for her sake, or can you contact SS for emergency help? Hope you find a solution soon.

 

[rajahh]

My husband asks every morning when we are going home, and he often packs up some of his belongings to take home.

We have lived here nearly 6 years now, he recognises the furniture and is always amazed this this house is a duplicate of his home, but he is absolute that he is in a stranngers house.

I just tell him we have to stay here for a few days as workmen are in our home doing a major repair, and we will return ass soon as the repairs are done. This is repeated every day or so as he does not remember. It does work. I am more fortunate than you though as I live with my husband so he is not on his own, . It must be more frightening for your Nan,

 

[AngelaW]

Thank you all for your replies, its reassuring to know we're not alone.

rajah - I'm so sorry you're going through this with your husband. That's exactly how my nan is. We find her sitting with her shoes and coat on ready to go. And like you say, she recognises everything but is convinced its wrong. We've reached a point where we tell her we will take her home tomorrow, and she just has to stay for one more day. But as soon as we leave/hang up the phone she forgets all about the conversation.

golfio26 - her gp and care home manager are on the case, but we're having to wait for the SS referral. We're hoping she'll be assessed again soon.

 

[Bedelia]

Angela, you are certainly not alone in this. My mum became the same, convinced that the house that had been the family home for nearly 40 years was totally strange - an "empty hotel" or "this place" she'd been "dumped in".

It got to the point where she could not tell which was her own bedroom or imagine any room on the other side of a door; and, like Rajahh's husband, she suddenly started obsessively packing bags to "go home".

I'm afraid it's nothing to do with the length of time lived in a place; dementia can destroy even the longest-standing feelings of daily familiarity with both places and people.

In my mum's case, this escalation of symptoms was the tipping factor in finally placing her in residential care. I had agonised over this for the last few years as things got worse, desperately trying to arrange everything for her to enable her to stay in her own home - but once that was no longer a security to her, but in fact another fear, I had to face the decision that she would be safer in care.

(Despite being very frail with poor mobility, she had started to wander, particularly at night, in an attempt to orientate herself, look for long-dead relatives, or go "home" to a place that no longer exists; one very traumatic incident involved the police. And she would often leave the front door wide open with her handbag easily accessible to passers-by, whether she was out "looking for" people/places, or in the house, feeling isolated and frightened.)

I think you are already doing the right thing in arranging a more secure place for your nan to live. In the meantime, I would say the only solution is to provide as much continuous company as possible, as the paranoid thoughts and fears are liable to persist any time when she is alone (and sometimes even in company, I'm afraid, if she is adamant in beliefs that cannot be disproven - e.g. this is not her home and her "real home" is out there somewhere else). This is very hard if you are the sole carer, so please do enlist whatever help you can from friends, family, or professionals.

Otherwise, as rajahh suggests, you can try to distract with a holding answer in the individual moment (e.g. "it's too late to drive today, we'll go tomorrow"). All the best.