The people in the facility are attentive, try to redirect him but his constant mantra is he wants to go home. He’s domineering and has other mental deficiencies for which he’s being treated. I can’t visit except window visits; telephone calls are upsetting. I have friends now and family and am not bored. I tried home aides but he was uncooperative and rude. I find it hard to hear how unhappy he thinks he is. This is very upsetting. Should I just tolerate his behavior?
My mom was in a SNF with dementia, severe edema, and heart failure (or so we thought at the time). She could still use a walker, but she just stayed in her room because everyone else there was either rehabbing from surgery for a short time or was a stroke patient in there for the long haul. She didn't want to be around "those people," and she darned near wasted away in self-imposed isolation.
I finally decided that of all her health issues, I wanted her mind to be treated the most aggressively, so I moved her to memory care. She wasn't allowed to stay in her room alone all day, there were all kinds of things to do that were stimulating, and even if she didn't want to do the activities, they had her sit at the table with those who were doing them. It made a HUGE difference in how she did overall.
Mind you, she's still there, and is in a wheelchair now, is incontinent, and is pretty much gone now cognitively. She's mostly blind and deaf and is on hospice care, but they still get her up and dressed every day, bring her out to be near the others, and talk to her, hold her hand, and engage with her. They take her outside to sit in the sun. All that matters -- a lot -- because she's treated like a whole person regardless of her mental capacity.
Many memory care places can do everything a resident needs until they die, so I'd check into that for your dad.
Everyone loses when dementia is involved, that's for sure.
Everyone is upset when dementia is involved, that's for sure also. You're upset, he's upset too, because confusion reigns supreme and nobody's sure WHAT is even happening anymore. It feels like we've all jumped down the rabbit hole sometimes. I hang up the phone some evenings and my head is pounding with a headache, that's what I'm left with after a 'conversation' with my mother.
It is what it is. Keep your calls brief and as pleasant as possible. Or limit the calls to once or twice a week, or whatever you can tolerate that doesn't leave YOU with a pounding headache or heartache you can't get rid of. Your husband can't help his behavior b/c dementia has ruined his life and his brain. That's the long and the short of it, unfortunately. The good news is that he's living somewhere now where teams of people can tend to his every need, so you KNOW he's well cared for and looked after 24/7, thank God.
Wishing you the best of luck finding a solution that works for YOU with this situation.
So, how do you deal with him? First you cannot reason with him and because of his short memory loss telling him you don't want to hear it anymore will not work. COVID, for some forum members with LOs in care, has been a Godsend when dealing with difficult LOs. Has given them some space. How long has he been there? If not long, maybe step back. Let the staff do their jobs. He needs to rely on them. The desease will progress and maybe somewhere along the line he will forget about home. You may want to ask about something to keep him calmer. Phone calls you don't have to answer. Pick and chose. Hang up when he gets demanding. Walk away when he gets demanding. No, he probably won't learn but u don't need to subject yourself to it. It really isn't good for him to get agitated either.
One thing that helped me is think of him as a small child. Which as the brain dies he will become. A small child wants it their way. A small child wants to go home because its familiar. (Usually when they want to go home it maybe their childhood home not always the last one they lived in) Your Dads mind is broken. Thoughts go in and out. He has no idea what is happening to him. His world may be a scary place. But, you can't really do anything to ease that.