Husband was in memory care for dementia, but now he's in the hospital with Covid-19. He calls me cussing me and saying he wants to come home.

Enough, being in a strange place is very disorienting. Being in the hospital with dementia, COVID and not being able to have visitors...that must be super disorienting for your husband.

Call the nurses station at the hospital and ask for the doctor assigned to your husband to call. Ask what meds are being administered and tell her/him how agitated he is on the phone.

Call the hospital's administrative office and ask for the number of the patient advocate office if you are not getting callbacks from staff. Also, find out when shift changes take place on his unit. The first and last hour of any shift is a bad time to call.

Has he expressed a wish not to go on before? If so why did you opt for a stent. Has he no longer the right to not want to live this way? Might it be time to decide on palliative care for him? Or hospice? On the one hand you can be glad he is pernickity enough and has enough fight to want to call and yell at you.
As to guilt, the first seven posts today claim guilt as their current badge. I don't get it. Have you all become killers, robbers, meanies? Or do you really mean you feel helpless to make things better for him? Isn't that what you really are? Helpless to make it better for him, and in pain? It is time to meet with family and decide that this is not the way anyone wants to spend years and years, helpless, ill, a captive to a system that drains them of dignity. Discuss palliative care. Discuss what the chances are of a meaningful and fulfilling life for him going forward. So sorry for all you are going through.

This is hard. No doubt about that. I see the news. What - 28,000 new Covid cases in US today? More? I can't even fathom. Where I live 66 today is headline news & tighter restrictions are now in place in hotspot areas.

Enoughisenough, I think you should prepare yourself. Covid-19 is a virus that effects some people very badly.

Your husband needed a NH, right now he needs hospital care. These are facts. You can't take him home. Another fact.

He can cuss all he wants & be angry at life. That's ok. He can fight the brave fight of life. Maybe he will win another round.

Just visit if you are allowed & hold his hand. Agree life is sometimes sh1te.

Of course you can’t take him home...no need to feel guilty. They all want to leave where they are so nothing new there. You just placate and give the therapeutic fib. Tell him "I’m looking into it" and that will usually stop the badgering. If he lives through the virus, then back to memory care he goes where he needs to be. He's not going to be getting better...the fact is he will decline further as time goes on. So home is not the place he needs to be.

Ask to speak with the nurse manager and your husband's social worker. He sounds very agitated and maybe the meds need to be changed or the doses increased. No way he can leave. Depression and anxiety go hand in hand with his dementia diagnosis. I am sorry you are having to deal with his verbal outbursts. He definitely needs something to calm him down. I doubt he is resting much which aggravates the entire situation.

For what it's worth, my 93 y/o mother tells me (and the rest of my family) that she wants to die on a daily basis. She's been saying that for years now, so we let it go in one ear and out the other, for the most part. She is the last person on earth who wants to die..........she'd want to go the hospital for a wart (and has demanded to), so we know she's just attention seeking.

Don't feel guilty about anything. Just take care of YOURSELF and let the calls go to voice mail. YOU choose a time of day to talk to DH, and then keep the convo light and fluffy. Do speak with the nurse about his meds, and perhaps he can be given something to calm him down a bit. I really feel that if he was TRULY a suicide risk (ie: likely to use the glass from his eyeglasses to cut his throat), the hospital WOULD send him off for a psych evaluation, with or without your approval.

Good luck!

Your statement said it all - he has dementia and he attacked your daughter. He cannot come home and under no circumstances can you allow it. Let him go back to where he was placed. You can't fix him so just ignore him and do not go near him. I don't care if he has dementia, he has no right to do things to you and yours. The best is to keep your distance and if he starts in on you, either hang up or leave.

Hi Enough, My heart breaks for you in this impossible situation. It is so hard to hear the man you love like this, and to not have much to ease his suffering. RE: your husband's mental suffering, I'm no expert except for family members in the hospital at times, but hospital induced delirium is very common in seniors, especially ones with dementia. Some of the anti-anxiety meds the hospital might give can have exactly the opposite effect than intended too. Sometimes the issues with oxygen or infection can swing a patient into that loop. I for sure saw all these things in multiple hospital stays with my stepfather. BarbBrooklyn's tips on negotiating the hospital chain of communication sound especially wise. Also, if you are able to do so, I would suggest doing an internet search on Delirium Covid-19. It is not a cheery read, but it may help you to understand. The hospital may well be doing everything it can to help your husband's mental state, and the psychological effects of the disease may just be a tiger to big for them to capture. The medical folks keep learning all the time, though, so if you can find a good ear at the hospital, maybe they can help.

Imho, under no circumstances should you take him home as you're ill yourself, having just had a stent placement in your heart. As well as the Novel Cornoavirus, your DH sounds like he has some mental health issues as well. Prayers sent.

Of course he's going to be out of it. He's in a strange place with strangers, with constant noise.

If he has to take medication, he is also "bothered" at sometime inappropriate times, such as sleeping or trying to get some sleep to take meds.

Then there is being "confined" in bed, sometimes hooked up to a machine making it uncomfortable at times. Add that to the tv being high up on the wall and trying to figure out the remote control, no wonder he is acting this way.

This is so hard for you. Try and imagine that this is happening to someone else and you were asked to give some advice. What would you say? Would you gently encourage them to look after themselves and their daughter? That is where you can make a difference.
Your husband is taking his frustration out on you but you are not in a position to deal.
When my mother started behaving like this, the advice from the professionals was that we needed to protect ourselves a bit more, that dementia did this sort of thing and that as soon as we were not there, my mother was fine again. To start with I was disbelieving but I managed to see her before she saw me (on a few occasions) and she seemed fine, her behaviour changed when we visited. She talked about suicide too.
Myself and my stepfather were 'triggers' to the behaviour. My mother was used to us 'saving' her. In this instance we couldn't.
My heart goes out to you. This is a hugely stressful time. Good luck with it all and stay safe. xx

Tell him he can’t come home because he has to get well first. Sherry and LeChel