First Time asking for help.

PatsyJ

I just joined AlzConnected so I am still navigating my way around especially in the area of getting advice and feedback as to how to handle various situations.  Recently, my wife became aggitated and wanted to call "her parents and go home".  This incident occurred during the sundowning period.  I have tried to identify the source of the aggitation or what might have triggered the event, but I could not.   I had to call my daughter to help and I told my wife that our daughter was coming by to visit.  This distraction my have removed the cause of the event because my wife was fine afterwards.  Is this familar to anyone?  What are your suggestions? Thank you.

jfkoc

Hi Patsy...

Oh, so familar. The interesting part is that going home may not actually be a place but rather a remembered feeling of security.

Teepa Snow has some good info on this online to help you going forward and to help you "read between the lines".

Something that has been suggested here is to tell your wife that they are on vacation and then ask what she thinks they are doing "wherever" they are. This can usually get a pretty inteesting conversation going.

markus8174

Patsy,

As JFKOC said, this is quite par for the course with Alzheimer's. My beloved would spend hours sitting in the car just "waiting for me to get around to driving us home!"  No amount of information would convince her this was her home.  I've come to realize that "home" meant her normal life.  Shopping, spending time with the grandkids, planning a vacation- all the things this disease stole from her.  It was about this stage that I refined and accelerated my search for a nursing home.  If she found where I hid the car keys she could easily have been one of those people you hear about on the news from time to time, driving around and trying to find all the things she had lost that make this house her home.

Paris20

PatsyJ, welcome. You’ve hit on a behavior that many of us caregivers know all too well. My husband had to be moved to a nursing home after he had a stroke but when he was at home he asked every evening for either his brother, his mother, or his father, all dead for many years. He’d say «Gee, I owe my brother a phone call.» Or, «We owe my parents a visit.» Whatever I answered was soon forgotten but whenever I told him they were gone, ie, they had died, he didn’t become upset. It was such a strange reaction. I thought for sure that answer would elicit an emotional reaction but it didn’t seem to bother him. We have to realize that people with AD  live in the moment. Memory is only related to something that happened decades ago. The good news is that if your answer is upsetting, it will soon be forgotten.

Dakern

Yes, I can always calm my wife down by doing a FaceTime with my son or having him visit.

Jo C.

Hello Patsy and a very warm welcome to you.  That "wanting to go home" dynamic is one that is quite familiar to many of us.  We soon learn that it is a negative to point out the incorrect thinking, or argue, etc.  That wish to go backward and thinking it is in the present is as real to your Loved One (LO) as the chair you are sitting on.  We must more or less enter their reality and address the dynamic as kindly as can be.

In dementia, the most recent memories vanish first; the person goes backward in memory time and eventually may feel that their parents are still alive, or that their own earlier home or parent's home still exists.  Mostly, we use a "fiblet," to address this when it becomes an issue; fiblets can be a loving kindness.  We can say the LO is at work, or perhaps is visiting a family member, or is on vacation, etc.; somewhere else and will be back "soon." Whatever makes our LO comfortable in the moment. 

Here is a link to an excellent writing re dementia and why things happen as they do and it addresses this dynamic; it is, "Understanding The Dementia Experience," by Jennifer Ghent-Fuller.  It is online at not cost and is well worth reading:

https://www.alzconnected.org/uploadedFiles/understanding-the-dementia-experience.pdf

We are glad you have found this wonderful place; we are all here in support of one another and that now includes you too!

J.

  

ghphotog

Crying and wanting to go home, usually the mornings, are a daily occurrence here for the last 6-8 months. Seems to be a familiar symptom of this disease. My DW probably wants to go back to a place in her childhood, loving family, mother and father, brothers and sisters, all under one roof, not a care in the world. . . 
I can't offer much advice on how to handle it as I'm still trying to adjust. 
Think I'm finally to the place I don't get as stressed over it as in the beginning. 
Wish you well.

PatsyJ

Jo C,

Thank you for the link to "Understanding The Dementia Experience".

It is emotional as it is informative.  

Thank You

PatsyJ

RobertsBrown

I  get this most every day, usually just before bedtime.  I learned to just agree with her.  She says 'I need to go home' and I just say 'I agree with you', follow me....

Then I lead her to bed, fold back the sheets and tuck her in.

Your solution may be different, but try agreeing and then initiate a different activity...make a smoothy, offer a snack, suggest you go look outside, or walk or whatever.  The 'agree and redirect' strategy is good, but I found that the redirect part needs to be physical to work at my house.....for now.

Crushed

Dear Patsy  Very very nice understanding and knowlegeable folks here.
  Can you fill in your profile including ages and state

 I am guessing from the name that you and your wife are both women ?  if so special welcome I have some   resources for couples who were only recently legally able to marry
  
if I'm wrong no offense intended to anyone .  

PookieBlue

Jo V,

Thank you for the link to “Understanding The Dementia Experience” It was so very informative. For the past approximately 10 years I have observed the decline in my DH. I learned many coping strategies over the years. When I think about it, I go back to the 70’s when I was a new LPN with a rotation at a nursing home. I remember several patients to this day. They used to call the memory problems OBS (Organic Brain Syndrome). In the mid 70’s I went on to work in Valdez, Alaska at Harborview Developmental Center with profound to mildly cognitive impaired young  individuals. In the 80’s I also did a clinical rotation in a large nursing home helping to manage medications as I worked on my PharmD degree. 

While I feel fortunate that all of these experiences helped me to understand and live with PWD before I actually had to, it took a lot of time making each adjustment (which I am still making). I hope that everyone on this forum will take the time and read this article. I think it would help us to have a heads up on how we respond to the infinite ways our LOs can change. We can always learn new ways of coping to spare us of some of the anguish we live with.

Valerie

ImMaggieMae

JoC that is probably one of the best articles I’ve read for caregivers. Thank you for posting it.