Bringing Nan home for visits

[Hairydogmummy]

Hi All. In need of some advice about whether to bring my Nan to my house sometimes, for dinner or just to be out of the home and around us for a few hours some days. DM is worried that she might not want to go back to the home if we do this and she hasn't brought her to her house since she went in the home 4 weeks or so ago. Nan has vascular dementia which declined rapidly over recent months. Although she generally knows who people are in terms of names she doesn't remember what she has done or where she is and why a lot of the time. I don't want to make things worse and confuse or distress her more.

We spoke to the care team first to get their 'take' on it and they felt it would be fine. So we used to take Mum out of the care home quite often in the 'early days'; drives, appointments, visits/meals at my home, Xmas, etc. She did fine and quite happily went back to the care home (or as she put it 'the hotel'). As her dementia progressed she started to get more confused/disoriented and wanted to 'go home' after less and less time 'out'. Eventually it got to the point where it was too distressing to her to leave the home at all so we contented ourselves with wheeling her around the grounds.

You say you don't care for her care taker. Is there someone else you can speak to? Or just give it a try. You'll know soon enough just what type of outing may work for Mum and whether or not she benefits from the change of scene. If at the first outing she starts to get upset then take her right back. If she is upset to go back to the care home or when you leave, then you'll know it's probably best to leave well enough alone.

My mum has been in a care home with dementia for almost three months now. Initially I thought I would take her out for trips and we did take her to a family lunch of 10 people the day after my dad's funeral (which she didn't attend) which was two weeks into her stay. But she is now settled there and the residents and staff are like her 'family' and, while she recognizes me as her daughter, I am not around her as frequently as they are.

She is in a small care home with a focus on activities so they have quarterly pub lunches where three residents at a time are taken out for a meal and a summer trip to the cost for 5-6 residents each time. I can join them too but the difference is her new 'family' are there so it feels safe to her. The staff also take her to hospital appointments when she has them if I cannot.

I would love to spend Christmas with her but am coming to the conclusion that it's best for her to be in a familiar environment with people she knows well and for me to just visit. It's sad but her needs must come first and I need to accept our relationship is different now.

About the comment from the carer about being in there making your nan worse, I think she may have meant the people with dementia do appear to suddenly deteriorate when they go into care due to the unfamiliar environment. it's like being at their own home, in a familiar place, enables them to mask some of the difficulties.
We had this with my DM, who has vascular dementia, both when she went into the care home and a stay in hospital. E.g. She was managing the stairs at her own home reasonably well but lost the ability to go up and down stairs right away as the care home has a lift, and now a few months later has pretty much lost the ability to walk more than a few steps and that's on good days.
It is horrible to watch a loved one decline. Some of the residents in there break my heart, asking where their parents are, wanting to go home and trying to escape.

I used to take my Dm out for short drives round a local Royal
Park - I‘d park somewhere with a nice view and bring a flask of tea and some little cakes - or we’d get an ice cream.
Sometimes she’d fret about having to ‘get back for the children’ but it was mostly fine. Only stopped once she’d forgotten how to get in and out of a car - didn’t know what to do with her arms and legs and would
panic if you tried to ‘steer’ her. 🙁

Thanks @GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER that sounds ideal. I think we might continue to take her for little things like this for now not take her to our houses as I'm having terrible trouble on visits with her wanting me to bring her home. One day last week the carers had to physically stop her coming after me. She was ranting and threatening, desperately wanting me take her home. She doesn't even know which home she would be happy in as she didn't recognise her last home as hers and talks about previous homes. She just knows her care home is not her home. As soon as I arrive she starts saying bye to people and trying to gather her things. It's awful. She only does it when I'm on my own.

@Hairydogmummy , sympathies, I know how difficult it can be. My DM went through a phase of wanting to visit her parents (dead some 30 and 50 years) ‘because they must be getting old and could do with some help’. DM was over 90 by then! I used to say I couldn’t take her today because (any suitable excuse) ‘But maybe we could go tomorrow?’ Her short term memory was zero by then so could repeat ad infinitum.
But this was well past the stage when she was angrily demanding to go home every time. TBH I used to have to psych myself up every time and sometimes chickened out - just couldn’t face it.
Always easier if I took someone else -esp. ‘golden boy’ dh!

@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER yes my son is her golden boy and she seems to love my DH now more than she did before lol. She doesn't even do it with my DM! My DS reckons she thinks I'm the soft touch.