Mom is in a nursing home, physically fit but dementia. How do I tell her she can't be alone?

Thanks. I am gaining much from your help. I also have financial issues. Mom has been in for 6 months, started in skilled now in assisted which she makes $100 too much for Medicaid, and trying to move back to skilled. Facility just now trying to get proper FL2 to DSS for Medicaid for retro pay. They are drug their feet and I'm afraid it will not happen. My husband is buying the truck which only helps us for another month. They say they will probably owe us but I received a overnight letter saying how much back fees we owed. I received med bills from a contract company and now haven't in 3 months. That scares me too but I'm afraid to ask. Any thoughts on this mess?

Wonderful advice here, Chris. Most of the time, people with dementia want to go "home" but home is more a feeling than a place. As mentioned above, it can also mean a childhood home or the home during his or her early marriage. Rarely are they cognitively in the present time frame. So, don't let guilt push you into taking her to your home.

When she asks, you can ask her to tell you about home. Sometimes, that starts a story telling mode. When she is finished (if she responds) then distract her to something she may enjoy.

You are doing well. Keep coming back. This community is full of strong, smart, caring people.
Carol

thanks for all the kind help and encouragement

Chris,

I know how stressful it is to have a parent in a nursing home. My dad lived with me for 5 years until I couldn't care him anymore and he had to go into a NH. The caregiving doesn't stop once our loved ones are in a NH, it's just different. We still have to advocate on their behalf, the visits can be torture if our loved one wants to go home or cries, or maybe they call us with issues we are unable to deal with from home and we feel guilty that we just want the phone to not ring, and most likely we have that small voice is our heads saying, "Did we do the right thing" and then there are the bills and the accounting that go along with having a loved one in a NH. I applied for Medicaid for my dad while he was in the NH and it took over 4 months to get approved but he was finally approved.....after he had died.

My dad was in the NH for 6 months before he died and there were times I seriously considered bringing him home because the stress of having him there was too great. I actually had to be talked out of it by my brother.

I know how you are feeling and I hope you have support and someone to lean on. And we're always here..... :-)

Chris, You CAN also make visits where your mom doesn't know you are there - just to see how she is doing. The reason I suggest this is so that you can see for yourself how well she is doing. A lot of times, our LO's only cry when they see us, because we're a reminder of home. So, try going to the NH and spying on your mom. Most people who do this see that their LO is happy and engaged in activities in the home. And it turns out the "drama" only happens when they see us. This can make it a little easier not to visit constantly. For early placement, I would suggest 1 time a week at most and if you do visit, act like your mom's concierge - come in at a time there is going to be an activity, take mom to the activity and do it with her. Introduce her to others taking part in the activity and then leave when the activity is over before your mom can start begging to go home.

She has some clear thinking but some moment of no clue. I have tried several of these ideas of distraction and the doctor. She cries and I feel awful but I know she is getting great care. I am extremely stressed and also after 6 months still trying to get Medicaid for her. Thanks for your help. Will continute to fight the battle.

The best excuse is:

"The doctor says you have to stay here for a little while until you are better." Never specify what "a little while" is and pin the decision on the doctor, so there is no point in your mom begging you to go home - it is out of your hands.

Also, it sounds to me like your mother is stage 6 dementia - my mother just passed through the "Wanting to go home" stage. Well...I have my mother being cared for at the home she and dad built in 1975. Dad is still alive and there with her and I have in 24x7 caregivers for her. Mom asked dad to take her home all the time during this stage. She would wake him up at night and demand to "go home." No amount of explaining to her that she was home would satisfy her. From what I could tell, mom thought dad had rented this house and they were just staying there for a while and she wanted to go home - which apparently was the home she lived in with her parents when she was a small child. I asked her what was wrong with where she was and she told me, "This place has NO CLASS. It's just a box." Well, it's a ranch style home that SHE picked out! It was custom built for HER and decorated to suit HER! I had to laugh.

So, my point is this, even if you brought your mom home, she would still want to go home - because she is wanting to go to her childhood home. So, even if she was home, she would not be satisfied. Enter your mother's world and it is much easier to cope with things. The "doctor" excuse is ideal because it takes the burden off of you as being the person who made the decision to keep her where she is. If you told her something else previously, don't worry, she won't remember. If she does, the best thing to do is when she starts harping on going home, get up and leave. Alternatively, you could try distraction:

"What are your going to do when you get home?"
"Who will be there when you go home?"

Then change the subject as the opportunity arises - for example if she talks about her mother, ask questions about her mother and let that lead the conversation to another topic other than going home such as "What was your mother's favorite food (or color, or place to vacation, or kind of music, or kind of animal.) Then change the subject completely.

I also used to distract my mother by spontaneously singing. She used to love "Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Old Oak Tree" so I'd sing that and she would join in. A lot of times that would make her happy. She also liked to sing "She'll be coming 'round the mountain when she comes." Interestingly enough, as her dementia progressed, she went from singing with me to singing in rounds with me - she was listening to what I sang and singing the same word just after me! I would also dance with her. The combination of engaging her in singing and dancing often worked to change her mood and get her off whatever topic she was on - usually a negative one such as wanting to fire the caregivers or wanting to go home. So try that as well. Remember, people with dementia don't know what's normal anymore, so if you start spontaneously singing, your mom won't think twice about it. You can bring your IPAD or computer with you and login and sing to songs on YouTube - lots of them display the words which makes it easy to sing old songs you might know the tune of, but not the words.

If she was at your house. She would still want to go back to her house even though this may of been a childhood home. My mother always wanted to go home to Ireland to see her parents who have been dead for forty years. My mother never realized she was in her own home of 50 years. This always happened at 2am. I would tell her we would go in the morning and I would put her back to bed. She would be very content and would go back to sleep. I wasn't a realistic conversation with my mother so I did feel I was lying because the alternative was she would be very agitated. My mother was given a small dose of Haldol which stopped her from getting up and asking several times a night. I don't know how demented your mother is or when she sees you that is the first question on her mind. It is very difficult for the elderly to be placed and settle down. I would speak with her physician and Social Worker for some problem solving.

my thoughts as well. thanks.

NO, if you take her back "to see" house, she will plant herself in a chair and refuse to move. She needs to make friends where she is, so don't visit every day, force her to reach out to those she is with. When she says "home" she may mean the house she grew up in. Dementia does funny things to their memory. Time and Place get all mixed up.