Oh Connie, I'm so sorry to hear your news.
I'm not going to help much here, but I want to give some observations from my 4 years of visiting Jan in her home. Jan sounds so much like Lionel in many ways, characterwise and in the horror of the condition for the partner.
When one visits a care home on a daily basis, one gets to know the other residents quite well, and also their relatives - the ones who visit, that is.
All residents of a care home have their bad times, and their good times. Jan has had her diazepam timings adjusted to curb her agitation, and medications have also been changed over time, in types and dosages. I regularly ask her GP exactly what regime is in place at the time, and why.
There is a lot in a care home to unsettle the resident, even if the dementia were not unsettling enough as it ebbs and flows, sometimes on a minute by minute basis. The care home is an unfamiliar place, the staff are strangers, the food is different, the freedom and lack of freedom difficult to come to terms with, the interactions with other residents uncertain, the abilities of the staff are varied some having more empathy than others.
When a resident gets agitated it can be very difficult and it happens to the nicest of people. I've seen staff taken to hospital because they have been struck by a resident - and of course the one thing they can not really do is protect themselves; the most they can do is withdraw, and that may leave the resident at risk.
I have learned not to judge the staff in such situations. I've been the subject of agitated residents myself and it is not pleasant. I find that voice intonation and heavy lying helps a lot, but then I will not have been on duty for 8 hours when it happens.
If you want to talk in detail, do please PM me.
It is undoubtedly a horrible situation. The medication does, at different stages, make the difference between being able to manage, and not.
Take care!