What do I say or do when my mother, who has dementia, is upset that my deceased father hasn’t come to see her at the nursing home?

My mother is the same. She sometimes asks for him and other times thinks he just stepped out of the room. I decided not to keep telling her he died as it is upsetting for both of us.

One day she said she loves him so much and doesn't understand why he left. I just said he didn't want to leave but had to go.

Either way, it is really difficult, but from my own experience, I would not continue to mention it.

Say nothing, you will be wasting your time. You will be speaking to a dead brain.

To 'let her be upset, eventually she might be distracted by another issue' is to totally ignore the fact that your mother is missing your father, loves him, and wants to be with him; that dementia has not rendered her a blithering idiot; it has just taken away her short term memory, that's ALL. It's vital to treat our LOVED ones with love and kindness, which is what you are trying to do here, bless you for that. To suggest she 'might be' distracted by some other painful issue later is to suggest she 'might NOT be' either, which is to also suggest WHO CARES? She's out of her gourd anyway. Which is cruel and heartless. My mother WAS in there with her dementia, and she still had feelings and was able to cry to prove it! If she didn't have feelings and emotions, she would not have been able TO cry! She enjoyed having visitors, she loved seeing her great grandson, she loved to eat her favorite foods; yes, she was still very much a real live PERSON inside of her body which housed a brain that was damaged with dementia. In SPITE of that fact, I should say. We all need to realize that fact as we handle our loved ones with dementia, and I think the vast majority of us DO understand that.

There is no good reason to tell your mom her DH is dead, over and over and OVER again so that she'll be sad, cry, and relive that trauma over again each time you tell her, which could be 20x a day!

AnnReid is spot on, in my opinion, to give her the answer that fits with the moment and that will make her COMFORTABLE and content for now. "Now" is all she has and all she knows. That's the definition of dementia, really. Keep her living in the current moment and all will be well.

I had the same situation going on for over a year with my mother who had advanced dementia and kept asking for her sisters/brothers/mama & papa over and over again, day in and day out. I surprised myself with the answers I'd come up with, too! Mama was living in Florida b/c the weather in Colorado was just too cold for such an old woman (she'd have been 137, after all!); that was one response I liked to use. Get creative. Tell mom whatever you can think of to keep her calm & assured that all is well; that is your only goal.

Wishing you the best of luck with a difficult and heart wrenching situation.

I've said before that we never know what will work sometimes unless we try.

I cared for a 90-something yo who would ask a "question of the day" over and over.

One question that she'd recycle here and there in any given month was, "What is Flo's last name?"

I told her one day that I've told her a million times and she just couldn't remember it b/c it was too hard. (It was a French name--Roubichaud.)

She still wanted to know. I looked her square in the eye: "Her last name is Roubichaudenhoothenhousen." I was quite surprised that mouthful rolled right off my tongue, but that did it. She never asked again.

I think this gives a nod to AnnReid's suggestion, which is very worth a try.

There is no solution, her memory and judgement are gone forever. Let her be upset, eventually she might get distracted by another issue.

She won’t remember that he’s died, and a “kindness comment” isn’t a lie, but rather a response that fits with her current cognitive and emotional responses.

“He’s taken a part time job delivering newspapers so he’s out doing that”.

“He had to plant the tomato plants today”.

”I asked him if he’d wash the windows while I was here”.

”He asked me to tell you he loves you and can’t wait to see you again”.

The goal is to make her comfortable in HER MOMENT.

Very painful for us as caregivers, I know, but less painful for our LOs.

“I am not sure if it’s harder on her to hear he is no longer living or that he, in her mind, has abandoned her.”

hug!!!
your poor mother, poor you.

by the way, i think her believing to be abandoned is much worse.

Wow M Mariel,
Im so sorry for what you are going through. When I worked as a DSP, Professional Caregiver with one agency, one of the training we received was through an expert on Dementia by the name of Teepa Snow. I loved her videos and information on what to expect, various behaviors, how the brain changes and how to talk to an individual that’s going through the grief and loss of a love one, and so much more.

It is so very important that you learn as much as you can about the disease so that you will know how to deal with the various behaviors of dementia. I wanted to send you the following links that may be encouraging to you in your situation.

The following video will give you a chart on things you can expect in different stages of dementia:  “Stages of Dementia: The 3 Stages and 7 Stage Model.” It’s by a company called kindlycare:
https://www.kindlycare.com/stages-of-dementia/

The next series of videos are videos of Teepa Snow the expert I mentioned on Dementia.
https://teepasnow.com/resources/about-dementia/

I hope this helps you.

My mother would get so upset with her imaginary husband who took Dad's place right after he died. (Her heart was broken, so this new guy came in and took on some of Dad's characteristics.)

When she'd start fretting that the hubby wasn't there, I'd say he was still at work, or he came by when she was taking her nap. Sometimes I'd tell her that he was working so much that he got home last night after she went to bed and left before she woke up. "Didn't you feel him kick you when he got into bed last night?"

It's little things like that that henp to take the worries away, and reassure her. Don't tell her he's dead, because that's devastating everytime she hears it.

He went to the store, he called and said he'll be late, he's at work -- all those little stories are effective because they tell her he's just out of her sight for a little bit, and truly he is.