Hi I am hoping that someone will have any ideas on dealing with the continuous question of can you take me home now. My mum has both Dementia and Aytzimas she no longer recognises her own home as home anymore nah is always asking if she can go home now my poor dad has to deal with this same question over and over again we have tried changing the subject, taking mum for a walk, saying it’s ok we will be going home later or in the morning but none of these work mu just ends up getting very distressed and on a couple of occasions has got out of the house without dad knowing luckily he has noticed within minutes and mange to get mum back inside only to receive lots of abuse, any ideas would be very welcome.
Take me home
- Thread starter Karen1062
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Welcome to Talking Point Karen!
Yes ! I have the same problem with dad and I have done all the same things as your dad. I think he could do with some respite perhaps not necessarily with putting your mum in a care home but at least by getting carers in to start with. This would allow your dad some freedom and give your mum something to concentrate on. Then later on try to get her to a daycentre and possibly respite either with a relative or in a care home.
Good luck
MaNaAk
Yes ! I have the same problem with dad and I have done all the same things as your dad. I think he could do with some respite perhaps not necessarily with putting your mum in a care home but at least by getting carers in to start with. This would allow your dad some freedom and give your mum something to concentrate on. Then later on try to get her to a daycentre and possibly respite either with a relative or in a care home.
Good luck
MaNaAk
Thank you for your reply, between my sister and myself we cover 4 days a week we have been trying to get some help from Social Services but so far no luck it seems as though we are told all the time that support is out there but when the time comes for you to ask for support it is very difficult to get the help.
This is a common dilemma, wishing to 'go home'. At first, one thinks that this is a literal request or need. Then, later you see it has hidden depths - those of insecurity, of longing to find a place of comfort, devoid of anxiety or bewilderment. And that can mean childhood, or a place where a sense of safety and security was present. So, it is not always the home as such, although it can be in earlier stages of, say, Alzheimer's. One sees it almost daily in the Care Home. "I'm going home" and then a walk to the bedroom takes place. And even when someone does ask 'take me home?' which might mean open the lock on that door, the request can melt away within minutes and be totally forgotten. Find out just where 'home' really is, can be a huge task. But there is always a NEED being expressed and for those with dementia it is very real. The challenge lies in addressing that need, with empathy, and not denial. Again, not at all easy. But as is so often said, those giving us a hard time, are LIVING a hard time. And this we clearly have to respect.
Hello @Karen1062, as has been said, this 'home' can be a need for security because the world can be a confusing and/or fearful place to a person with dementia. Maybe if you had a go at asking what your mum wants from home or what is causing her concern, confusion or fear you may be able to get to the root of the issue and be able to reassure.
When a person leaves the house they may be trying to get away from whatever is causing the confusion or fear so it may be worth walking them back home by a circular route, rather than straight back. If you take them straight back you are taking them back to the source of their fear before they've had a chance to forget it and this may be the reason for the agitation.
When a person leaves the house they may be trying to get away from whatever is causing the confusion or fear so it may be worth walking them back home by a circular route, rather than straight back. If you take them straight back you are taking them back to the source of their fear before they've had a chance to forget it and this may be the reason for the agitation.
Hi @Hazara8 my mum often asks me to 'take me home' - often with tears in her eyes and pleading in her tone. Despite all the recommendations to distract, this does not work and I try to explain that she was lonely and vulnerable in her old flat but here (in assisted living) she is safe and has some company. Its to no avail. When I leave her she calls out and a carer needs to be with her as she is so very fearful of being alone. I walk away feeling that I have let her down and leaving her feeling so vey lost. Awful, Awful disease.
My mum is actually in her own home, but sometimes asks me "why am I living in this house?" or "Am I in the right house?" So please don't feel bad if your loved one is in a care home and asks to go home. It wouldn't help if you did take them home. So sad. I think that in the later stages, for some people there is not always a solution for the person suffering.
This is almost universal in dementia and very hard to deal with. When someone says thay want to go home you think about their present home, or (if they are in a care home) the place they previously lived in - the home where they quite possibly lived with their spouse or other family and this makes their family feel guilty that they can no longer live there. The thing is, though, that this is not what they are asking for. When mum asked to "go home" and I asked what her home was like she described her childhood home (bombed in the war); other people describe a fictional place. "Home" is not a real place, its a desire to go somewhere where the confusion of dementia can be left behind, to go somewhere where they understand what is going on and remember who everyone is, a place where they are no no longer frightened and can feel that they have control again rather than floundering in the mists of their mind.
This compulsion to "go home" is all consuming and can be neither granted nor can the person be distracted from it for long. It is distressing for both the PWD and their carer. Ultimately, there is no answer, Im afraid, though you may get temporary relief by doing things like walking them round the block and then saying "ah, look - we are home", or persuading them to stay the night "as we are here now"
Yes, its horrid
This compulsion to "go home" is all consuming and can be neither granted nor can the person be distracted from it for long. It is distressing for both the PWD and their carer. Ultimately, there is no answer, Im afraid, though you may get temporary relief by doing things like walking them round the block and then saying "ah, look - we are home", or persuading them to stay the night "as we are here now"
Yes, its horrid
Dear Karen,
You, your sister and your dad are doing a brilliant job but I wonder whether your area has a local carers forum. Your GP or your local Alzheimers Society should be able to help you with or the citizen's advice bureau.
Good luck
MaNaAk
my mum suffers the same asking me to take her home when I ask where home is she gives me her address ...which is the house she lives in ...and has done for 25 years ..on her lucid days we talk about this and she tells me she knows all the things in her home are hers but it just doesn't feel like her home its all about the feeling she has and its really hard to fight against a feeling she has been on Aricept for a few weeks now and I don't want to jinx it ,,but she hasn't mentioned going home for 10 days
Yes, it can be truly difficult and painful, owing to the fact that there is no resolution. At the end of the day, the term 'comfort' becomes paramount. I referred, on another post, to the time when I was a small child, subject to very nasty nightmares, I was terrified. My father would come to me and take hold of my hand and remain with me, sometimes for half the night, despite him having to arise the next morning for work. That simple act, of consoling a frightened child, in this case myself and my own father, was all that might be done and it was the right thing to do. With dementia, the same approach is really required. The person-centred approach, that of comforting, when all else is beyond one's reach. We can discuss dementia and frontal lobes and the hippocampus or neuronal syapses, beta-amyloid, sleep patterns, genetics and so on and so forth. All highly relevant and fascinating in study and research and without question, important.
"Going home", the meaning behind which, if made crystal clear by the one requesting it, would make things so much easier, but dementia clouds the issue in a quite profound way. So, you cannot really address the question with a mind which is based upon logic, or suspicion (what do they mean?) because there is always that risk of exacerbating the problem. Therefore, there are times when you say nothing, simply hold a hand, give a hug, make a cup of tea - but YOU ARE THERE, that is important too - being there. And you hang on every word and pay attention to every 'look' of an eye, in order to strive to be as one with your loved one. Not at all easy, we have family to care for, jobs to go to and so on.
We can express emotion or anxiety, we can say "I want to go home" after a bad experience, or we are tired and seek the solace of our own bed. That is clear and concise. With dementia, that faculty we know is not there, the means or capacity to structure a thought which runs its course, is not there. The damaged brain cannot relate to the undamaged brain, because it makes no sense. This is why so often, a request (in the Care Home) can bring about a totally contrary response. "Do you need the bathroom XX?" "Don't be silly! You know I don't do that!!" Or a chicken lunch is seen and believed to be a fish lunch - no matter how hard you strive to convince, which is usually a huge mistake. Fear and anxiety are very real companions in dementia. But, I have found personally, that even in quite difficult situations (agitation or aggression) the application of 'comfort' over and above say distraction or 'white lies', can prove worthwhile. Every single case is as different as every single individual who walks upon this Earth and with that extraordinary creation, which we term 'the brain', having been in some way compromised by a disease, the challenge in terms of 'communication' is immense --- but not hopeless. And that feeling of 'letting down' comes about due to the fact that you have no choice, but above all you cannot rectify the nature of a dementia which inhabits your loved one, your mother, and in so doing, 'owns' her in a particular way. Therein lies an enormous challenge. But as has been stated before and as has been seen many, many times before, a simple taking hold of a hand can convey much much more than a thousand words and it requires no explanation.
Thank you. I suppose I just just try to make it right even though I know it's futile and that fear is mums constant companion
They do say, that in dementia, the 'feelings' are there, but not the 'attachment'. I feel sad, or afraid, but am not sure why? So where capacity is absent, or reasoning, or this 'attachment', at least we can offer comfort with our presence. We cannot make sense on behalf of our loved one, nor reason with them as such, but by communicating a 'sense of safety' and validating what we hear, despite it being a 'fantasy', we offer something quite profound I feel.
Going through this at the moment. My mother wants to go home, wondering where her parents are, her siblings. Her brother calls regularly but she doesn't recognise him.
We try and distract when she talks about her family but when she asks straight out are her parent dead then we answer honestly. 5 mins later she will think they are alive again.
We are going to have to stop with the history soon because its just not making any difference when she asks. It was funny though to see her burst out laughing when we said she was married to Jerry for 40 years and had 6 kids! She wasn't believing us.
She lives at home, where she has lived the last 23 years. My father doesn't seem to register with her anymore 9he died 2012)
We say we will visit her brother who lives in the childhood home but she was upset that she would have to come back to this house with us after. She is annoyed with her brother getting the house and that she will give out to her dad. She said no one told her. Her brother and wife moved in to look after their mother and got to keep the house then.
Im really questioning whether to bring her home. I think it might actually be too traumatic for her. Its so hard to know. It s also so hard to distract all the time when she is insistent with the questions and needing to know the answers.
Its a horrible disease and I really wish she didn't have to go through this.
We try and distract when she talks about her family but when she asks straight out are her parent dead then we answer honestly. 5 mins later she will think they are alive again.
We are going to have to stop with the history soon because its just not making any difference when she asks. It was funny though to see her burst out laughing when we said she was married to Jerry for 40 years and had 6 kids! She wasn't believing us.
She lives at home, where she has lived the last 23 years. My father doesn't seem to register with her anymore 9he died 2012)
We say we will visit her brother who lives in the childhood home but she was upset that she would have to come back to this house with us after. She is annoyed with her brother getting the house and that she will give out to her dad. She said no one told her. Her brother and wife moved in to look after their mother and got to keep the house then.
Im really questioning whether to bring her home. I think it might actually be too traumatic for her. Its so hard to know. It s also so hard to distract all the time when she is insistent with the questions and needing to know the answers.
Its a horrible disease and I really wish she didn't have to go through this.
