Hi, my name is Carol, I am very new to this and am my mother's primary caregiver - she is 88 years old Stage 4-5 Alzheimer's. It has been a bad day - my mom constantly wants to go home, even though she is physically at her own house, or at mine 1/2 mile away - it starts in the morning and continues until she gets so upset she leaves the room. I have tried convincing her she is iin her house; I have packed bags and cases in the car, taken her to my house and brought her back to her house in the hope she would remember it (she didn't). I cannot take her to any other house but I can't keep stalling her and watch her cry and get agitated because no one listens to her - anyone have any experience with this, and any suggestions. I can onlhy think to tell her that he house has been torn down but I am afraid it might be too extreme. She also has been missing kids but I could calm her down about that - I can't seem to make any headway though withe the phone.

Hi Carol,
I'm sorry about your Mom.
I personally haven't experienced this really, but I've read other posts dealing with it, so I'll take a stab at it until someone else answers.
Saying they want to go home is speculated to mean that they want to feel safe and secure.
Things you could try are telling her that she can go home soon, or tomorrow, or try to change the subject. Is she seeing a psychiatrist or neurologist who works with dementia patients? They can prescribe something to deal with the agitation. You could also try calling the Alz Association hotline 1-800-272-3900.
Welcome to the message board. There are a lot of really compassionate and knoweldgable people here.

Carol, I'm sorry you're both having the deal with this. These symptoms are caused by the brain damage and screwed-up brain chemistry caused by the disease.

Two thoughts:

1) Is she on any psychiatric meds - like anti-psychotics (Seroquel, Zyprexa, etc.) or antidepressants (Celexa, etc.)?

If not - talk to her doctor right away. A very small dose of medication can help dramatically with a low risk of side effects, and it won't zombify her.

And if she is, talk to the doc about adjusting her dosage or trying a different med.

2) As far as saying anything to her - I agree, don't tell her the house is torn down. It probably wouldn't work anyway, and she might react very badly.

The only thing you don't mention having tried is saying "Okay, we'll go home this afternoon (or tomorrow or whatever)."

It works with a lot of folks. I'm not super-optimistic that it will work in this case, but it can't hurt to try it. I'm pessimistic because of the perseveration she's exhibiting which goes way beyond the mere "I want to go home" statements so many of us hear from our LOs day after day. For them, that kind of promise works well.

(Perseveration = relentless repetition due to brain injury or disorder)

Carol,

My biggest fear is that my mom will demand that I take her home. I realize our situations are different, because my mom is in an ALF and recognizes that she is not "home" (whatever meaning that term has in her mind).

I was planning to tell Mom the truth..."your doctor said you don't have much time left and I want to be near you and make sure you're taken care of." However, EVERYONE told me not to do that, because it will only upset Mom, and the next time she wants to go home, she won't remember having the conversation and will have to go through it all over again.

The advice I keep getting is to try to distract my mom. Things like, "Can we talk about that after this T.V. show is over?" or "Let's have lunch first, then we can get you ready." Do you think that work with yours mom?

I don't know if this helps you, but it's what I plan to try. Please let us know how it goes and if you find something that works.

My mom has done this, it seems to come in spurts. She sometimes packs her suitcase, has it ready.
one thing that helped with her when I am visiting to tell her we are on vacation, we'll go home in a few days. Then I talk about how beautiful it is there, how much I like it. It seems to calm the agitation. And she doesn't remember that I said it, so it can be repeated .

Jennifer Ghent-Fuller's article, "Understanding the Dementia Experience", will help you understand what is going on in your loved one's mind, and how best to respond to things like wanting to go home:

http://alzheimers.boomja.com/A...xperience-59731.html

I would also highly recommend the book, "Creating Moments of Joy" by Jolene Brackey. It's great -- full of very practical, simple advice on how to make our ADLOs happy -- and make us happy in the process. It's paperback, and you can buy used but still like-new copies dirt-cheap by going through amazon.com. Be sure to select a vendor that has received good reviews, and look for the description of the book -- select a copy that is described as "like new" or something similar. And check shipping costs when comparing prices...

"Bledsoe" found this excerpt from the book:

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/oncall/Story?id=5326334

quote:

My biggest fear is that my mom will demand that I take her home. I realize our situations are different, because my mom is in an ALF and recognizes that she is not "home" (whatever meaning that term has in her mind).

My mom routinely ends our visits by saying "You gotta get me out of here" or "I've got to get out of here and go home".

So try this: just agree with her that going home is a good idea and that you will go next week when you can get time off from work.

I have this conversation all the time with my mom and it works very well, actually.

t's extremely common for a person with Alzheimer's to say that they want to go "home".And when they refer to "home", it's an expression of an emotion..., it's really their way of saying they want to find a better place in time, in the mind.
The home she wants to go is likely the one where she grew up, so she doesn't "get" that she is home. Home is where the heart is and her memories..., so it could be a good idea to keep on hand an album of pictures from the past so that she can reminisce about her life, and when she expresses that she wants to "go home", just validate how special that time of life was for her.
Another solution can be as simple as taking her for a quick drive or a walk around the block, meanwhile playing along and pretending that you're in fact taking her to the home to which she refers.

This disease is so sad because we lose our loved ones before they are even truly gone.

No matter how hard we all try, I think knowing what's going on inside the head of someone with dementia is impossible.

Awhile back my mom wanted to go home from her ALF. If not to her home, with us. She offered to sleep on the sofa. And cook all the meals. Bless her heart.

I said no, the doctor says you're not ready yet.

And she got very quiet. Wobbly-chinned. I thought she was going to cry. And then tell me about how much she missed her house, and her own bed, and her own "stuff" all around her.

But no. She burst out with a completely confused and furious reason for not liking my answer that had nothing to do with anything real whatsoever. Instead, it was a gripe about a perceived (and delusional) injustice that she had already been fussing to me about.

Basically, her reason for wanting to leave was an excellent reminder of why exactly she is in a locked dementia unit.

Nothing to do with any home anywhere, or missing her own "stuff", or feeling generally dispossessed, or a sense that things "just weren't right."

Eighteen months later, she still wants to go home. But the reasons are still nutty, nutty, nutty.

Right now she's mad because the CGs are nice to everyone. Sounds like a GOOD thing, right?

But Mom is convinced that some of the residents just want attention and should be fussed at or ignored for their bad behavior(you know, like the pitiful woman who weighs 80 pounds with MS who is curled up in a wheelchair completely unable to move or feed herself - she's just doing it for the attention).

Sigh.

quote:

Right now she's mad because the CGs are nice to everyone. Sounds like a GOOD thing, right?But Mom is convinced that some of the residents just want attention and should be fussed at or ignored for their bad behavior

That made me laugh, because last week MIL actually told another patient to get transferred somewhere else because they 'required too much care'...I wanted to ask her when she was promoted to care manager(grin)...I just apologized to the other patient. I don't know about your Mom, but it seems that MIL wants more attention from the staff for herself and she feels slighted watching other patients interact with the staff,and is trying to 'weed out' the 'troublemakers'.

When my Mom does this (usually 2-3 times a week). I try to focus her on something else in the house or change the subject. This allows her to start thinking about something entirely different and usually it's a good memory (sometimes you find out the hard way, not every picture has ALL good memories...)

And it's help my step-Dad handle it as well.

I know sometimes it's not easy to "change the subject", because they become agitated, but if you're calm and show "interest" in the subject yourself...most times they will be happy to discuss where you are focusing them on and it makes everyone happier around.

I hope my "changing the focus" stuff keeps on working as we continue.

Kevin