Dementia..any coping strategies gratefully received.

[Springsnake]

It’s the same conversation every day ,I’m never there less than 2 hours ,some days 4 hours she Cry’s when I leave and says she wants to live in my house .
for the last 20 years she hasn’t been the slightest bit interested in me or her grandchildren seriously,no visiting ,not interested
,dh is getting mightily pissed off at being left at home with the kids every day for hours at a time,I’m struggling to keep smiling at every visit ,because her life has changed ,I understand she’s missing her old life ,she’s so confused I explain the situation,how she ended up in the care home ,time after time after time ,often more than once in the same visit.
I can feel my mental health slipping ,I feel like I’ve gone down the rabbit hole when I’m with her ,
I’ve 2 children with SN ,so life was already very challenging before she moved near me .

The care home my FIL was in advised us never to say we were leaving at the end of a visit. We had to make something up about going to the loo or speaking to a nurse or some sort of excuse. But just go.

It felt weird but it was far better for him or like you we would have been doing 45 minute highly distressed good byes.

So ,I need to get the mental health team involved..will the care home do this ,they have a dementia ward ,but mums not on it yet
She’s got a broken arm as well in a sling ,and they tell me each time I visit they are keeping notes on how many times she takes it off .6 times yesterday,she even managed to convince a member of staff it wasn’t broken ,she’s very convincing when she’s rattled.
I am expecting them to say she needs to be on the dementia ward soon
So all my explaining of the situation is not helping? I need to just agree with her? She thinks my dh and I have moved to her area to live,she can’t understand she’s moved to my area to live ,so I just agree with her???
But what happens when she starts saying( as she does) that she’s moved in to my house ,and then she’s wandering around looking for me,when I’ve gone..
Surely that’s wrong to agree with that as I’m giving the care home staff extra work by agreeing with her that I live there too ,she’s getting distressed and wandering in other peoples rooms trying to find me ..

I’m finding I can leave after an hour if I time my visit an hour before a meal time ,then a member of staff takes her for food while I slip away ,that’s definitely helping the situation.,

It's not agreeing with her in the normal sense, neither is it lying as you know it. Instead, view it as her understanding of how things are. I'm confused, has she got a formal diagnosis of dementia? If so, why is she not on the dementia unit already? Care staff in the other units may not have specific dementia training. You will need to contact the mental health team and explain the situation, ask for their advice. It sounds like she may be in a home that's not equipped to meet her needs which is hugely concerning

Yes she has a diagnosis of dementia,but I think the consultant said it was early stages .dementia ward is next to her ward ,perhaps they don’t have space

Hi @Springsnake

I live with and care full time for my MIL who has Alzheimer’s. Yes agree to everything as much as you can, you’ll sometimes end up agreeing or nodding along to completely bat shit things but it’s usually the best way forward. My MIL likes to bang around ALOT at night obviously makes sleeping difficult, I’ll always get up to check on it and make sure she’s ok. When I ask what’s going on or what the noise is, she will often tell me that it’s an elephant or a cow making the noise. I will usually reply with something along the lines of well that elephant is being very noisy and waking everybody up, did it wake you up to? Shall we go back to bed? Usually she’ll agree and sometimes it’s stops the banging and sometimes it starts again ten minutes later, but agreeing with her makes all the difference in having a calm interaction rather than a tense or anxious one and she settles quicker when things are calmer.

For times when you want to leave a lie is always better than the truth. Nip to the loo, just going to chat to the nurse, grab a drink etc and just go. It’s hard and first but it really is better for both of you.

Food is a great distraction and often helps calm my MIL. I always have a supply of her favourite custard creams on the go.

As for you, you have to remember to take care of yourself first. As sad as it is your never going to be able to give your mum what she wants, if she was at home living with you, trust me when I say that she wouldn’t want that either and it would be something else instead. Always wanting something different is part of the illness, their rational being that if they just go home, live with you, get to some place or other...things will be better, which obviously they won’t be because none of those things can cure the disease. So as hard as it is try not to feel too guilty

Fuck OP, I'm sorry. My dad's dementia was pretty bad in his final few months and I recognise this a lot. Don't go every day, prepare yourself mentally for the conversation and do your best to steer her onto other topics if you can. Music seems to have the ability to nudge memories out which could change the conversation - look up some of her favourite tunes, or some of the top songs from her childhood and youth and play them for her, it may swing her onto talking of other things.

My dad constantly just wanted to come home when we'd visit, it was absolutely heartbreaking. Talk to her careers about the best way to handle this. We found the best way with my dad was to play along with his delusions. "Yes dad, the ferry got cancelled so now you just need to wait for the next one in a week" or "But Joan is on her way to visit you in a few days and you can't leave before then". It can be less distressing for a patient to not have their perceptions argued and torn apart. Self care is important here too OP.

Oh and seconding the food suggestion. Cake was the thing for my dad :) It was an excellent distractor.

I’m finding the same with food yes
Mum had stopped cooking for herself at home and was living of chocolate and biscuits,but I don’t know for how long
So when she smells the food cooking she’s always keen for the meal ,it’s enabled me to escape a few times
Yesterday she had written down on her note book ( she likes to write things to remember)
Urgent chocolate brownies
Just as I got in her room and read her notes
in came a member of staff with a cup of tea and brownies ,I couldn’t belive it .