9 Ways to Soothe Someone With Dementia Who Wants to Go Home

I started taking pictures of the rooms at home when mom said she wanted to go home. It helps her know she is safe and home.

Thank you for your information ! Living at home with my father in law who has dimentia and often says i want to go home , great understanding of this article as now we know know how to deal with this situation

Thank you for the tips & tricks for those "I want to go home" moments. I have tried several of those, or some variation thereof, with my mother. I have not tried the old photos trick or asking her to talk about her childhood home. Those are definitely going to into my bag of tools. I have found a few other tricks that have worked, by themselves or in combination: 1. I'll touch her back, give it a quick rub, then turn that into a hug and, in a compassionate tone, say something along the lines of "We're not going right now, we have other things that we have to do. So, we're going to have to be patient." Usually, it's late afternoon and I tell her it's time for me to prepare supper & I still have to feed the pets; 2. Another trick that's worked for me is to change the subject to something which sounds exciting, funny or super interesting. For example, "Oh! I meant to tell you what funny thing happened to my friend Sue yesterday. You'll love this..." 3. Give a bowl of yogurt, ice cream or a piece of chocolate. Actually, I've found chocolate helps out in a lot of situations. Her doctor suggested dark chocolate, but any chocolate works. Sometimes, for any sundown syndrome related situation, I can give her a little hug & a piece of chocolate & she's good to go for a while; 3. I read shoulder massages help to relax them. I've tried that a few times, but she not a big fan of shoulder massages.

the only one that works is #1 and leave as she gets agitated. She knows where she lived and wants to go there. no butts about it. She now has private aide in am for 4 hrs and at night 4 hrs and she is blessed with the ones she has, they love her. They are friends to me too. They are licensed CNAs. I get the high sign and I leave.

my mom always asks me to take her home,and i used to tell her this is your home,but in vein. Now i understand. i will change my reply.thank u very much for ur advice. arundhati

I am far away, 12000 miles and can't help at this stage. My youngest sister who is 80, is having such problems with our eldest sister who has just turned 90 and in a "home". I will mail her these comments in the hope that it will help her. Life is not much fun as you grow old and can't help. I am 73 and as mentioned too far way to help. My health is not good and to travel that distance may not be a good idea.

It's another very helpful piece of the puzzle. Thank you.

Only love, reassurance, patience, hugs and trying to change the subject can take her mind off of "home", for a little while. All of which can be to no avail, sometimes.

Mom knows exactly where she wants to go; she tells you the exact address. we have tried several things. We can't take her out since we cannot lift her and we don't have a handicapped vehicle. Their van won't take you that far. I have three professional care workers for her now and they have no other things to try either. she keeps saying she doesn't like it there when she gets sarcastic. 8 hrs a day she has a personal caregiver. she acts up with them too. At times she refuses to take part in anything including eating. she is Ares the Ram her birth sign and she lives up to it.

Thank you Norm for your concise analysis of what "I want to go home" means to you. i'm sure that Elaine appreciates your efforts as well. Hopefully we can each apply this to our OWN "Norms" situation.

The various methods used to focus attention on an idea other than physically leaving the present situation.

Norm's description of "home" is inspiring. Needing reassurance, love and hope comes with living everyday.

Dementia And wanting to go Home We have all heard people with Dementia say it. I say it most night`s according to my “Angel” Elaine. Sometimes I even whisper it during the day without even knowing. I have thought about this for a while now, and in my very humble opinion, here`s what I think it means. When I say”I want to go home” even though I am sat in the front room of my own house, do I mean my “Spiritual” home?? The answer to that sadly is no, as I am not particularly a religious person, and any belief I once had has dwindled away as my life collapses in front of my very eyes and I know, as yet, there is no cure for this awful disease. So, do I mean my home town of Bolton, Lancashire? I shouldn’t think so, as I have lived in Devon for the last 15 years and even though I am very proud of where I was born, as we all should be, wild horses couldn’t get me back there, as I am totally in love with the Devon Countryside and the way of life here. So, where does that leave me? I think what I mean when I say “I Want to Go Home” is an admission that I know I am really ill, and in fact slowly dying, as there is no cure. I think somewhere, deep in my subconscious, I am yearning for that place where someone will tell me it’s all been a bad dream, or I have imagined it and all will be ok, a place of safety, yet not an actual place, just a reassurance that all is going to be ok? I know that when Elaine says she reassures me that alls ok and I am safe, I calm down, and I either sit still, go back to sleep or talk about something different. So maybe it’s not a physical place after all? Or a place I used to live as a boy or a young man, maybe it’s just a little reassurance I am looking for instead of being told “You Live Here” or “Where Do you think you Live? Food for thought for everyone I hope. Maybe one day I will “Go Home”, maybe one day they will find a cure and I have no need to seek that comforting reassurance any more, maybe, just maybe. All my love Norrms and family xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Diagnosed six years ago aged 50 and still fighting it!!!! PLEASE SHARE

thank you for this article, it is very helpful

Home to my husband means his childhood home on the farm. Letting him tell me, again, about what they did on the farm helps him and also helps me to learn about farm life, as I am from the big city. This sooths him about going home, as he is going home in his mind and someday he WILL go home.

Better understanding of what is meant by "I want to go home". Also, ways to respond as they are all different backgrounds in life.

All of it. We haven't reached that stage yet, but when we do, I'll better know how to handle it. thanks.

Thank you for your wise words

The concept of "home" for my wife is a dizzying hodge-podge of ideas. Often she harkens back to her childhood home which she left at age 20. She is now 72 and in the mid-stages of AD. We have not seen he childhood home in years. I understandher fond memories of the place. Our current home, in which we've lived for almost twenty years, is where we wish to stay for the rest of our lives. She behaves as though we are here on a temporary basis and will someday have no place to go...be out on the street so to speak. Even though mild compared to some of the other more troubling symptoms going on, this one is bothersome because it leads in to aggressiveness sometimes.

My mom started having Delirium & Hallucinations amd spent 31 days at Mental Health. She has been in assisted living for 3 years and has always wanted to go home. She is now in the Special care unit. I walked in her room the other day and was shocked, she had packed every thing in her room. The staff said she gets upset when they put it back so I left it alone. Is any one else dealing with this?

My husband says this, and he means he wants to die and go home. He is 61yrs. old, was diagnosed in 2006, and I am sure he has had it longer. He hates living like this, he cannot do anything, can't be left alone, so I have said all those things to him, that you are home, the look in his eyes is scary, So when he says, I WANT TO GO HOME, he does not want to live like this. It's a horrible disease, wish I could do more for him!!!

I agree that "I want to go home" tends to be an expression of discomfort. It means I want to go to another place different from this. When we were able to get to this conclusion we just practice some of the recommendations or we just change her from one place to another, many times to her bed because she was just tired and wanting to "go home".

Lately when my father (84 in early to mid stage of severe dementia) asks to go home he is referring to Idaho, which is where he grew up. The problem I have is that quite often after asking about home or his mom, he realized on his own that his mother is gone now and says, "I don't have any people in Idaho anymore, do I?" I just try to reassure him that I am his family and this is home. Other times when he thinks we are in Idaho I join his reality and go along. But then he realizes where we are...it's so hard to know what to do sometimes.

Thanks for the advices, I will spread and let more people understand it.

This is a new journey of me having a mother with dementia. Some people just don't get it when you say my mother is being moved to a nursing home. That they would never put their mother in one. My mother is wheelchair bound. And has dementia. I would take care of her at home if I could but I know I can't physically . My heart break is deep enough without the support of friends.

While my Mom was in the Moderate stage, since they were in a very nice AL place, we pretended that we were on a trip and would be going home in a 'few days' or 'next week'. We used to go on vacations together, so this was pretty easy for us to do. She would then ask if our room was as nice as theirs, or were we sharing the room. Which was interesting, as she was sitting on the furniture and seeing the furniture which had been in their home for years, yet she believed that we were 'on a vacation'.

These general suggestions don't really address that middle/moderate area when the person remembers home but isn't capable of living alone.

Loved the responses you listed. I have to admit I have said "But you are home" and all I got was a confused frown. I'm definitely going to try these suggestions. Thanks.

GREAT WORK, AND VERY HELPFUL ! DRK Head National Clinical Services 24-7 Care, SA.

I was asked by the one nurse to stay away for a while and limit visits. She said Mom got very agitated when she saw me (I want to go home, why did you put me here, I don't like it here, what's wrong with me) so I did stay away for a week. (most other family members come once or twice a week) I called each day to check on her and found she was doing the same thing without me. what a relief, it feels like ton of bricks fell off my shoulders! I went in to make sure she got to the beautician and told her and she went, I thought the same thing that I was the cause of her screaming etc. Now I feel better too. She asked me to come in on the days she is scheduled and stay with her so I will. She LOVES the attention after it is done.

It's very reasuring bcuz I kno I'm doin the best I can & it's not personal against me or anything I'm doing ;-)

A former relative's mother was in a care home due to a broken hip. They made the decision to keep her there afterwards because her dementia was late stage. The care home was a wonderful place, run by a friend of the family, and she was visited everyday, sometimes multiple times per day by her family and loved ones. Finally, they got tired of the 'I want to go home!', so they took her home after 6 weeks of this. She got in the door, was wheeled into the living room, settled in. Her daughter (the former relative), asked her - 'Are you glad to be home now?' the mother responded - 'Did I go somewhere?' All that work to bring her back home, and she didn't remember being gone - much more expensive to have her in her own home (not to mention the hardship on the extended family), and she did not live more than about 3 months after that.

For Voorcroix.... I also get asked this a lot and I always respond, as others do, from the angle of why she is still alive... BUT the last time my Mum asked and I started answering she interrupted me by saying "No, I mean how did I get here...(elder care facility)". That required an entirely different answer - and it meant she had forgotten that she fell and broke her leg several years ago. So I now see the question could also mean she has forgotten what happened and is asking for information - why she isn't at her home any longer. Why am I here = meaning what brought me here to this place.

My mom-in-law says she wants to go home all the time and I was reponding "you are home" Now I can handle it in a different way and see if it will help. thanks for the ideas

It is helpful to know to follow the direction of the questions, not being able to reason is what i am finding very hard to do.

Mom has now 'gone home'. She passed away last Friday (1/6/12). She had been nearly comatose for 4 days - very difficult to watch. One of my brothers and I were there with she and our Dad. We love you Mom!

We used many of these ideas with my Dad. Best response was to either tell him we would "go tomorrow" by which time he had forgotten we had said that and thus could say it again for the next day and getting in the car for a short drive which, by the end of, he had usually forgotten what he had wanted. Changing the subject works for so many of these "unanswerable" questions/situations. I especially loved Bigseylee's singing a crazy song and dancing crazy. Great distraction AND a great way to release her own tension! Way to go!

Thanks for this article, it is very helpful and I will use these subjections, because I had not thought about them in that sense, so thank you very much

Just the general info was helpful.

This has always been a difficult question in our house. Now that Mom is at the end stages (barely breathing, and mostly comatose), I wish she would ask these questions again. Not because I have a different answer, but because I would like to hear her voice one more time.

My sweet lady I care for sometimes is distracted by changing the subject, sometimes I ask her a question that requires her to think about another time in her life, sometimes i say I need to go do something in the other room and she calms down in the few minutes I'm out of the room. Sometimes even just sitting quietly helps her calm down. When all else fails, I say "OK, lets go. You"ll have to give me directions since I don't know where home is..." and we get one, two, or three blocks away and she says "What am I doing? The IS My house, isn't it?" The we go back HOME.

I agree with PGC, it is futile to try and force my mother into logical thinking. I found that even if (miracuously) i did convince my mom of the rightness of not moving home, 30 minutes later she has fogotten the pearls of wisdom I used to convince her and we're back to square 1! I do a LOT of topic changing. "Oh mom, did you catch that total lunar eclipse last night?"

This is nice and simple to use, important for anyone trying to keep calm themselves while helping the distressed person to relax. One old comment said that this didn't help for people in a long term care facility. Yes, it does. My own mom is not "here" but the same suggestions ( and cautions) work for my friend's mom. It's a state of mind that you are addressing, not a place.

This is so tough when they ask to go home , I used to tear my hair out when my mom would say over and over " I want to go home." Then one day I changed my voice and started singing a crazy song out of the blue and got up and started dancing crazy. She started laughing and forgot that she wanted to go home!!! I'm not saying this solves the problem all the time but sometimes just acting crazy really helps. My prayers to everybody whose going through this, it's very hard and people don't understand!

My mother is in the middle to late stage, and when she says she wants to go home, it can mean a lot of things. Sometimes it means that she needs to go to the bathroom (even though she will firmly state that she does NOT need to go the bathroom! ). Sometimes it means she is tired, and wants to lie down. Sometimes she is overstimulated (too many people, too much going on, all at once). The physician's assistant today said that when mom gets agitated, to not get agitated with her, but to try to find out what she is making her upset. She said it is like having a very small child who starts crying. You go down the checklist, Is she hungry? Is she tired? Does she need to go to the bathroom? Is she overstimulated? I thought that was a very apt comparison.

Nice. Very helpful article.

Mom is now in a great Assisted Living facility with Memory Care Unit. She is always either asking when can I go home or yelling at everyone to get out of HER home and that she isn't going to pay for all of them to eat and keep warm. The nurses told me to say when the doctor discharges you but that isn't working any more either. When she starts yelling at everyone I do not what to say or do to stop the tyrant. If I try to leave her in the room; she starts peddling after me in the wheel chair SCREAMING my name. The nurses have had to run interferrence at times so that I could leave.

My husband constantly wants to go "home" to a house that his parents sold in 1965 and I keep telling him he is home and he doesn't live there anymore. I'm so glad I found this article to tell me how to handle this now that I find I've been doing it all wrong!

Thank you for these suggestions - my Mum, when she is feeling low, often says this and it is painful to hear knowing that going back to her home is not an option. Just last weekend she was in that state - combined with tears and her saying I'm so lonely here, no one talks to me, and her painful haemorrhoids.... so it was good to have the reassurances and suggestions in your article, to try next time. Normally she is fine though!! She has caring nurses and frequent visits from her children (almost daily).

Sometimes you have to laugh not to cry. My father built his dream home in 1963 and for years he said he was never going to leave it because "I know every brick in it." So, it was especially upsetting when he started demanding to go home and insisted that this house where he had lived for 45 years wasn't his home. He loved to fish and he had several of his largest prized fish mounted on the wall in his den. I thought I would use logic. I took Daddy in the den and I pointed at the fish on the wall and I asked "Daddy, who caught these fish?" "I did!" he said proudly. "Well, then Daddy this must be your home because your fish are mounted on this wall." It didn't work. He walked over to the wall and started trying to remove the fish. I asked him what he was doing and he said he was going to take the fish back home with him.

I have tried all these things and other things but, It's always the same reponse from him, "I don't understand."

the advice given on ways to deal with the constant desire to go home expressed by my husband was very comforting to me thanks carol

it made sense of something my husband keeps saying and now i can offer more comfort to him rather than keep saying that he is HOME thanks Carol

I love the short and sweet answers I can give my mom. Thanks.

I have a 90 yo mother who is going through this stage and she tells me frequently that she "hates it here and wants to go home" she has been in the home 6 years now and all of her good friends have passed away and she can't figure out why the Lord won't take her. I keep telling her that the man upstairs has not pulled her number yet and, of course, she says " well He better damm hurry up and pull it cause I'm tired of this place". So whenever I go up to visit her, about every two weeks, we go for ice cream and drive around the country side - she enjoys that, but then never wants me to leave. I live about 2 hrs away. I have found your site quite helpful in dealing with my mother as she goes through these stages - thank you for having this site. Jack Younker

I too have found that arguing is futile, and upsets all parties to no avail!! I use almost every opportunity when my mom says "I want to go home." to do as the article recommends, asking her to tell me stories of her childhood, or favourite things she likes to do at home. I also find that distracting her by asking her to go for a walk with me or playing some shuffle board, or other mind exercising light game, is a very good distraction as well.

Just to know that this situation is not literal is a great help to me and I will take to heart your suggestions especially the comment on the loved one being in distress!

Not really as it didn't really address the issues of those in a long term care facility.

mom wants to go home all the time. I am at my wits end trying to comfort her.. Then she starts crying and calling me hateful names. I will try talking to her about her childhood, but so much of the time she doesn't even hear me or acknoledge that I am even in the room. It is so hard taking care of her by myself. Sometimes I just think I am going crazy too.

mom is always talking about how she misses the water, the people and the cars going by where she lived last, it helped to read the suggestions.

My Brother has not gotten to that stage yet but when he does, than I will now know how to handle it!

This article was very helpful. A typical response of "OK; let's go tomorrow" seems to be helpful. Obviously, tomorrow is another day and she has forgotten.....

I helped care for my grandmother with Alzheimers, but it was very different than what I am experiencing with the lady i am a care giver for. She gets very hostile and speaks rudely to me like I am in a conspiracy against her. I have tried showing her pictures she has around the house, but she says they were here from when she used to live here. Thankfully she she is not like this everyday. But the times when she is, she can be a real pill. For me, just being quiet and not even trying to explain or distract her works best. At least she seems to react more calmly and it is less frustrating for me.

Mom has asked me to take her to the bus so she can go home. When I ask her where home is, she says Croatia. We live in Canada. And the bus hasn't run in the nearby town for at least 30 years. Although it's a stunner to hear this question and no amount of logic works to soothe her, it's unimaginable to think of how Mom must feel. Here she is in a house she's lived in for over 50 years, and it's unfamiliar. How lost and frightening that must be!

All I can say is god bless and we now how much your family member means to you !!!!!!!!!!! We will say a prayer and ask God to watch over everyone and to make the right decision!!!!!!!!!!! God Bless us All!!!!!!! But most of all be sure to be their for theme one who is going thru the tough time as they need you. You are all they have and need to know you are there for them..I miss my loved one very much!!!!!!!

Very insightful advices! Thank you so much

One of the hardest things for me to NOT do is trying to force my mother into reasonable, logical thinking...........those days are gone. It is so much easier to accept the illogical statements "I have to go home. My mother is waiting for me and she doesn't know where I am"...........It is just sometimes difficult to keep my natural responses to myself.

The manner in which one should respond to the situation - very valuable and easy answers.