Hi, my Mam has late stage dementia and has been poorly over the past couple of weeks. My brothers and I have been caring for her but it is getting more difficult for us to manage her at I. My current issue is she believes we are staying in a hotel and she wants to go home. Yesterday I took her for a run in the car and on returning to her bungalow understood she was home. However, today she once again has asked to go home and was upset when going to bed, asking if I would take her home tomorrow. Taking her out everyday is not possible because of work and we are concerned she is going to become distressed when we don't "take her home". Has anyone experienced this?
Mam wants to go home
- Thread starter Mor
- Start date
Hello @Mor and welcome to the forum, and also @Kristatos
This compulsion to "go home" is almost universal in the mid/later stages of dementia. It is not a desire for bricks and motor - even if you were able to take her back to her teenage home it would not satisfy her. What your mums are actually asking for is to go back to a time and place before dementia where she felt safe. She wants to go somewhere where she can leave all the confusion of dementia behind, not realising that she will simply take it all with her.
It is difficult to know how to deal with it as leaving the confusion behind is impossible. Sometimes driving or walking her round the block will temporarily work, but not always. Saying that you will take her home "tomorrow" often works too
This compulsion to "go home" is almost universal in the mid/later stages of dementia. It is not a desire for bricks and motor - even if you were able to take her back to her teenage home it would not satisfy her. What your mums are actually asking for is to go back to a time and place before dementia where she felt safe. She wants to go somewhere where she can leave all the confusion of dementia behind, not realising that she will simply take it all with her.
It is difficult to know how to deal with it as leaving the confusion behind is impossible. Sometimes driving or walking her round the block will temporarily work, but not always. Saying that you will take her home "tomorrow" often works too
Hi @Mor and welcome to posting on the Forum. My wife wanted to go "home" to see her Mam and Dad (he was still working in the long closed shipyards) and to have tea with her Gran. For a while, she could see her Gran's house from wherever we were at the time. This seemed to be a comfort.
I would confirm that they were all "fine". When she mentioned home not being where we had lived for over 20 years. I did not correct her. All I said was that this was where we were living at the moment. As we pulled up in the car she sometimes did not recognise the house. Inside, she was amazed to see that this strange place had "almost" exactly the same things in it as home. It was pointless discussing or correcting any of this so I made more coffee and talked of other things
I would confirm that they were all "fine". When she mentioned home not being where we had lived for over 20 years. I did not correct her. All I said was that this was where we were living at the moment. As we pulled up in the car she sometimes did not recognise the house. Inside, she was amazed to see that this strange place had "almost" exactly the same things in it as home. It was pointless discussing or correcting any of this so I made more coffee and talked of other things
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