My father has been in a nursing home for 4 years now. He has two kinds of dementia. Some days are good and some are really bad. There isn't much in between. I went to visit him the other day, and all he wanted to talk about is going home. I told him that I had to talk to the doctor. He yelled at me and told me he doesn't have a doctor and hasn't seen one since he has been there. So he said again he wants to go home. I asked him where home is. He said that he didn't know but it is wherever my mom is living. I said she is in heaven and he swore at me. Then he asked when that happened. I told him 4 years ago. He said that is impossible because he talked to her this morning. I told him that he probably did. He swore at me again and I told him that if he is not nice I am going home. That didn't last more than 2 minutes. So I ended up leaving. I know it is the disease and not him talking, but I don't believe I need to take that abuse. I am running out of ideas what to say to him when he asks to go home. Some things I tried, "You are safe here", "Maybe another day",
" you are well cared for here", ...but nothing seems to calm him down anymore. Any suggestions?
I like what lifestudent suggested...saying something like "that would be wonderful wouldn't it" and then pair off on another story like "do you remember when we used to blah blah blah" and tell him a story of when your family did something enjoyable that is going to take his mind in another direction. Re-direction is key, but it has to be something strong enough to divert his thoughts.
Nothing debatable or argumentative or nothing reiterating that his wife is gone.
She couldn’t handle it when I had to go someplace and she was to be left with her caregiver, I said “I have to go to work, so you need to help me out with this” works almost every time.