Therapeutic fibs are no longer working. How do I address my parents' requests to come home?

I am 80. We would ALL rather die than have some things happen, but that isn't our choice. The answer to that is that you are sorry, and you wish things were otherwise, and then to tell the truth of the situation. You need to embrace the fact that not everything can be fixed. Death, yes, is the final fixer in these tragedies of our loss upon loss upon loss until we are gone, kept living when life is intolerable to us. I am so sorry. It just cannot be fixed. I don't believe in therapeutic or lies otherwise. They cause more pain. The fact is that this is the fact now of their lives. As my bro observed in his ALF situation "Hon, it's much like when I was young and in the army. I don't like it but I have no choice and I am making the best of it".
I am so sorry. I wish there was "advice" that can fix this.
You need to limit your calls. This day and age of attachment to a phone isn't a good thing for young nor for old. They should not be allowed to make calls in this manner from their facility. And if they do you need to tell them you will speak with them once in the a.m. and once in the p.m. and if they call while in a bad state you will not be long on the phone. As I said, it doesn't do them any good nor does it help you.
Again, today, I am writing that "not everything can be fixed". That is the truth. I am so very sorry, and my heart goes out to you, but you are going to have to endure this just as THEY are going to have to endure it, and 30 calls daily doesn't make it better for anyone.
There may never be any acceptance. And again, there may be. Dementia is as individual as one's own thumb print, and is very unpredictable. I surely am sorry. Remember, always use the right G word in all this. This is a situation that is full of GRIEF, but you didn't cause it and you can't change it so please do not take on guilt for it.

I think every person is different, so I am writing from my own experience with my mother who has advanced dementia. She is 98, in a very small care home. This summarizes my last umpteen visits:

One day she is pleased with her “retirement home”. The staff is lovely and they take of everything for her.

One day she yells for them to help her get ready or she’ll be late for school. (university)

One day she is tired of all these bed and breakfast homes, all this travelling, and wants to go home. Now.

One day she is happy with the bed and breakfast she is in because she’s been able to relax and do absolutely nothing. She has just returned by train from NYC, where she was busy sightseeing for the past several days. And she’s exhausted from all the hustle and bustle.

One day she is content in her own childhood bedroom. She tells me that she doesn’t recognize the male voice in the hall so one of her brothers must have a friend over. The clattering of dishes in the kitchen means her mother must be cooking.

I wait until she tells me where she thinks she is, then I play on it. (she does not know I am her daughter anymore) Then I build on that, to try to lead her down a different path. “You want to go home? Oh no, not now. There’s a big storm coming. Wait until tomorrow.” Or “You’re safe here. Please stay. A fallen tree is blocking the road to your house.” Or maybe “You won’t be late for school. I just heard on the radio that a water main burst on campus so classes are suspended until it’s fixed.”

I have to think fast. I realize my mother is further along than your parents but her demands to go home peaked about 2 years ago. While she was living in the same house she’d been in for 17 years. “Home” goes from being a physical location to more of a place in time. I’d try to build on the hotel notion. After all, haven’t they earned some time off from cooking, laundry and running errands?

The 30 phone calls sounds like a lot of anxiety, an issue to discuss with medical staff. Good luck to you!

Did you place your parents in memory care?

Why were they placed there?

Are the surroundings in their residence clean, pleasant looking?

Do you refer to their residence as being “locked up” when you speak to them about where they’re living?

It took my LO SEVERAL MONTHS to adjust to her surroundings when, for her welfare and safety it was necessary to find the best place we could find, very near me, for her to live out the life that she had to leave, the house where she’d been born almost 90 years before.

I honored the suggestions of her excellent psychiatrist, who prescribed a very mild dose of medication to help her relax far more than she had during her last difficult years at home, and she gradually returned to the snappy, well dressed woman she’d been for her whole life.

I have told my family that if I were to be disabled by a disease as cruel as dementia, I’d be honored for them to choose the residence where My LO lived.

I’ve told them that I’d probably protest, complain, threaten them. That’s what people do, if they lose the ability to use reason and fact to reconcile their life losses. The process is rarely easy for them or those who love them, and often more painful for their caregivers than for residents themselves.

If you are not able to be fully committed to the care your parents are receiving, do you have other viable alternatives to meeting their care needs? Can you care for them yourself?

If not, can you give them the time to adjust to their new lives, and support the fact that there are good things happening where they are living now?

There’s nothing easy about the position you and your parents are in, but if you can all get past these tough days, you may be surprised by how comfortable this can become.

Most of us understand what you’re feeling.

I'd say let them adjust in peace for a little while yet. That means not answering the phone the 30 times they call. Tell them you are going to be away from the phone for a couple of days, then DON'T answer it. (Let the folks at the MC know you're doing this and that you are fine, so if your folks freak out about not being able to get hold of you, they'll redirect them and reassure them that you're fine.

Also, enlist the help of the MC staff. Talk to the administrator and see what they suggest to help your folks settle in better. Limit their access to the phone would be a start, because they're living with one foot firmly on the outside, so to speak, and making no real effort to embrace their new home. The caregivers there may be able to give them more attention to distract them from their obsession about going home.

I also suggest writing a short one-page biography of each of your parents for the staff to read so they can really get to know your parents and what they did before they lived there. I did this with my mother when she moved into both nursing homes she lived in, and I also sent it along when she'd go to the hospital or rehab. I talked a bit about where she grew up (one of her favorite subjects), how she was a first-grade teacher, an artist, and a librarian. I mentioned how many children and grandchildren she had and all our names, so they could ask about each of us.

Nothing's worse than having people who know nothing about you try to make small talk especially when you have dementia and can't make conversation well in the first place, so give the caregivers something to work with that makes your folks feel like they belong there.

neelloc, when my Dad was in Memory Care, he never felt like he was in "lock up". He loved being around people closer to his age group, he enjoyed the activities especially the music from his era, and how he loved the food served in the dining room. He especially liked the fire-drills as an actual fire truck would show up :)

Dad had free range to the Assisted Living building, which had a floor for Memory Care, but he could not go outside without one of the Staff or family with him. The building was no different than living at home. How many of us keep our front door unlocked? How about the back door? At night time, the elevator would not allow residents to go to the other floors, but the Staff had a code to use said elevator.

It is my understand when someone with dementia asks to "go home" it means their childhood home back when they had fun as a child. I recall my Mom was asking to visit her parents and siblings. Mom was 98 when she asked that. The therapeutic fibs worked.

The only time my Dad would call me was when he climbed into his time machine and went back to the 1940's. He would call to say he wasn't coming home for dinner as the meeting ran late, thus he missed the last bus. He would stay at the hotel [which was his room at memory care]. I just played along as it was easier and it didn't frighten Dad like it would if I had tried to correct him.

This is all quite a journey for us.

It really doesn’t matter what you tell them, because they will forget. That being said, tell them whatever you think they want to hear, just to keep the peace. You don’t want to upset them, so just play along with whatever you get from them at the time.

If they think they are in a hotel, fine, tell them to have a great time. If they ask to come home, tell the, I’ll be there in a little while, in the mean time, just relax.

Remember the home they are talking about could be not real. Home means different things at different stages of your life. Maybe they are talking about the home they had when first married; maybe they mean their childhood home, maybe a weird mix of all there homes…bits and pieces of each.

Ignore their calls. Ask the facility if there’s some activities that can help occupy them. Ask the Dr to adjust their meds. Mostly, you will just have to ignore their calls and requests. This disease is so hard to cope with for the entire family. When placating them, be as upbeat and nonchalant as possible, that will help them be calm.

We are dealing with similar. Limit daily calls for your own mental health and wellbeing. Therapeutic lies: no longer work. It's all about safety. I tell my Mom...I know you'd like to go home, but with Dad gone, it was just too hard for you to be alone and you were scared all the time, especially at night...and we don't ever want you to be scared, so you moved to be near people and help, should you need it. You're safe here and that's what matters the most. Misplaced/confused surroundings. I always "anchor" Mom with...look around you...do you recognize the furniture, the art work, etc? (repeat safety message). Another favorite of my Mom's is...I never see anyone. No one ever calls me, etc. I've instructed my brothers to always ask about bananas..."Mom, do you have bananas?" If the answer is yes, then Laurie was just there because she brings you fresh bananas every Sat.

Something that has been really helpful for us is ppt charts. I made 2 simple powerpoint charts. Siblings/spouses all have copies. They're taped on the back of Mom's AL apt door. When she's anxious/teary/unwound and calling repeatedly, we walk her to the door. We have her read the slides to us. We do it over and over until she calms down and her questions are answered. On the slides we have: Her address; how/why she moved there; who lives nearby. On the next slide we address her next set of common anxiety causes: your rent is paid; you eat in the dining room; your sources of income are; and...most importantly, you are safe and surrounded by staff in case you get scared, injured or sick.

When she talks about missing NY/her friends, and wanting to go visit family in Puerto Rico, I say...we'll work on it for the spring (or summer, or fall). That works and it's soon forgotten. We do go for rides in the car, and it's a super treat to go to the mall to wander around (and reminisce about all the fabulous Macy's shopping done over a lifetime), and drive throughs are a treat.

Hope this helps. At night, after I've spoken to Mom once, I "block" her calls til the next am. This has been a tremendous anxiety reducer for me. Also, I've worked with the grandchildren to set up a rotating daily contact schedule to call their Nana. Each has a day (or 2) that they're responsible for an evening call to Nana. If they can't make that call, they get their own sub. That works well!

Please watch out for your own physical, emotional and spiritual wellbeing. It's a rough journey.

Your parents aren't buying the "fibs" anymore. That happens. They haven't been in the memor care facility for that long. Give them some time. Six weeks really isn't all that long considering they lived in the same place for 55 years then one day were living somewhere else. That's a huge adjustment. They may never adjust to being there. This can happen too. The most likely scenario is they will acclimate and adjust in time to their new environment but will turn on the crying and begging to go home whenever they see you or call.
As for the 30 phone calls a day. That is outrageous. The staff of their memory care need to prevent them from calling you so much. Or block the number if you have to.
Do as Alva suggests. One call in the morning and one in the evening. No more than that. She's also right about you not causing the situation so you should not take the guilt for it as if you were.

My mom was at home for quite some time even though she should have been in a facility. She did not want to go to a facility and claimed I just wanted to get rid of her. I tried to take care of her at my home but I was just not able to do so for many reasons along with a torn rotator cuff of my own.

We returned her to her home with 24/7 care. THIS COST $18,000 PER MONTH. We were using her funds while she was still cognizant enough to have funds transferred from her IRA. It got to the point where she was not able to do this and because there were some banking. POA and Trust complications to resolve I used funds from my savings. I spent over $60,000.00 from my funds. She didn’t qualify for Medicade because she had funds in her IRA but she could not use them due to her incapacity. I am successor trustee and was able to recoup my expenses after the home was sold. But in the back of my mind I was not sure this would happen because I didn’t know if there was another Trust or will I was not aware of.

sorry to be long winded but my point is that returning your parents home could be financially devastating. In addition that does not necessarily free you up. I live about 70 miles from mom but my brother was just 2 miles away. The caregivers were constantly calling him. We need this or that. Mom is not cooperating, etc, etc. He was working at home due to Covid and it was tough to balance all that.

While my mom with dementia was mobile she did not wander from home. This would be something else to consider. Caregivers would need to watch both if wandering off is an issue.

You may need to start answering less when your parents call. If there is an emergency the facility will call you. I know it’s hard to answer the same questions over and over. The question with my mom was meds. Every 5 minutes it was “when do I get my pills”. My response always was followed from her with lots of horrible names for me.

once again sorry to be long winded. This dementia thing is so difficult. Good luck and hang in there.

Stay in close contact with the staff. Let them guide you in decisions about outings.

I can’t imagine getting 30 phone calls in a day! Geeeeeeez. Please don’t continue to answer your phone. Let the calls go to voicemail.

Check in with the staff once or twice daily if you wish while they are adjusting but don’t feel badly about taking a day off here and there. You don’t necessarily have to speak with them daily.

They haven’t been there for a very long time so give them a chance to get use to their new surroundings. Uneasiness can be expected during a transition.

Would they participate in any of the activities that are offered? Have you met the activities director to discuss encouraging them to attend any social gatherings?

Have you considered meds for them to keep calm while they are going through this transitioning period?