My 94 yr old Mom has been in AL for 3 years. She was living alone, hallucinating, calling the police, and started to wander. You know the list....For 18 months she seemed to be adjusting, but Now, she is always nasty when I visit...I "put' her there, what kind of daughter am I , I can go to h*ll, etc. She either yells at me, or completely ignores me, and won't talk at all. I see the other residents, and they appear to deal with their situations in a much better way than my Mom. She is on anti-depressants. She is nice to the caregivers, always wants to see me, but when I visit, my presence agitates her. I have developed a thicker skin, but I feel badly that she is not more content. I wish there was a "happy" pill. Any thoughts??
Having said that - I recommend looking into the Teepa Snow videos on Youtube. She is a tremendous demetia caregiving educator. I can't say enough about the education she gives. Look for the series about "Making visits valuable". There's a lot more topics than visiting she covers in the series.
She says that "going home" is a normal and common question. It should not be taken literally. Frequently, the home being requested could be a place back in time where the person has happy memories. Or it's a place that doesn't exist anymore and the people they would want around aren't alive anymore. If you did take mom "home", the disruption to the daily routine would be bad news.
There are a lot of caregiver stories on this site of people who did get mom or dad in the car to go home and didn't even get out of the driveway before they wanted to know where they were going, or once they did get home, were very upset over it not being "right", meaning not like it used to be.
Teepa suggests just seeing this request/question/demand for what it is, and say tings like "I wish I could make things like they used to be for you", or draw them out by asking them to tell you what about home they enjoyed the most, or talk about any specific memories they have about home. The goal being to acknowledge the person's need, and then redirect them into something else. It takes a lot of practice to get good at it, but we aren't being graded on this, are we?
I hope this helps you out!
Please check out this resource & I hope it helps us all communicate better.
Thinking back over the 25 years that she lived with me, she did have dementia a lot longer than I thought she did. It just does not happen over night. When she brings up the "I want to go home." I remind her that she is in a better place, and that I cannot take care of her. I put the blame on me rather than on her. Do not carry any guilt of having to place her in AL.