Deflection

When I first herd this statement I was perplexed, since I was in the home of a dementia love one. If I was in a nursing home and a loved one made this statement, I would just figure that they wanted to go back home. After a little research, I found out that this is a common statement by a person with dementia. But I found a unique way to help contain their feelings that they need to go home.

What a dementia person is really trying to state is: I am lonely and bored and I want to go to my childhood home where there are warm and friendly people, like my parents, siblings, relative, and friends. A safe place were they grew up, despite the fact that most of them have passed away years ago. To help a person with dementia in these type of situations, it is best to divert them from their current feelings. A family member might try to divert the love one’s attention by looking at family albums, but their love one with probably come back and state that we know everyone in the album, with the family member feel like that did not work, but it will probably work with non family members. 

When my grandfather got into his later years, he would want to go on a drive through the country side, usually looking at the corps, since he had farmed for many years. Therefore, since the family member wanted to “go home,” it seem like a drive through the country side might give them a diversion, like a drive by the family homestead. Although the dementia person might ask during the first few drives, “Who lives down this road?” The caregiver has to learn to be patients and continue with the drives.

After a few trips, the dementia person’s reactions are amazing. Although they have not used their brain for the last twenty-three hours, they are now reviewing everything that they are seeing through the windshield and comment on old and new landmarks, including the family homestead. As a side note, as the sun goes down in the fall earlier and earlier, they might get anxious, so afternoons, with the low sun in the sky is not a good option.

But, after a few drives, the caregiver can start to see positive changes with the dementia person. With them starting to see a bigger world, they are not filled with as much fear, and they stop asking the same questions over and over, “When are we going home.” Therefore, they become associated with the world, again, taking some the stress off of the caregivers.