Is it normal for a person with dementia to suddenly forget where they have lived for the past ten years after returning from the hospital?
My mom is 82 and has been having increasing dementia issues for the past few years. Nine months ago, one of my sisters moved to live with her in the house she has been living in Green Valley, AZ for the last ten years. About a month ago she had a fall and ended up in the hospital. After the hospital, she was in a rehab center for a couple of weeks. Since returning home, she has taken a sudden turn for the worse. She is becoming incontinent, but the strangest thing is that she keeps insisting that the house she returned to is not the house she remembers. She thinks she is living in my sister’s house and not in her own house and keeps asking to be taken home. She insists the “old house” was up at the top of the hill (in the center of town) and now she living out in the boonies at the bottom. Is this usual for someone with dementia in the situation I described (brief hospital/rehab stay)? What might have triggered this? Could this have been a result of the fall and not the progression of her dementia as such? Although the CAT scan she had done did not show anything unusual. I know this must sound like a naïve question, but it is so strange to me that she doesn’t recognize her own house after being away for such a short time. My heart goes out to her in her confusion and I wish I could say something that would jog her memory. I was just wondering if anyone else has had an experience like this and if you have any advice on how to best deal with it. Thanks!
Nothing about dementia is "normal" but this sudden desire to "go home" is extremely common.
Your mother thinks she is in her daughter's home. My husband thought he was in a hotel. Both of them want things to return to normal for them. They want to go where the world makes sense and they can rely on their memories. They want to go back to how things used to be.
I tried to convince my husband that he was at home. I showed him items we had purchased together, things we had gotten as wedding gifts, albums with our pictures -- and he agreed with all that, but he still wanted to go home.
It would have been much better (I later learned) to reassure him and comfort him and distract him than to try to convince him.
Perhaps your sister could say, "And I'm SO glad to have you here with me, Mother! Your house has plumbing problems and it will be worked on next week. While you are here with me, let's make sure you are comfortable. Do you need another blanket on your bed?"
If Mom doesn't think she is in her own house, nothing you can say or do will change her mind.
This is a phase that will go away by itself in time. For my husband it lasted several weeks and then only came back when he was extremely tired.
I noticed that with my Mom after she had a serious fall with head trauma, she thought the long-term-care was a motel and that I had a room down the hall... and she was upset with my Dad because he wouldn't wait for her so that they could both board the bus for a sightseeing trip.
Then my Mom said she wanted to "go home" but when she kept asking if the cattle were out and she wanted me to call one of her sisters, then I realized she was relating to her childhood home where her parents ran a dairy farm [said daily farm closed decades ago and Mom's sisters had all passed on]. By the way, my Mom [98] had age related memory decline prior to her fall but the head trauma caused her to accelerate into final stage of dementia.
Everything that Jeannie and FF wrote makes perfect sense. The only other thing i would add is that at the very end of life when someone says they want to go home it may mean going home to heaven
Is your sis getting help? Is there a day care near that would give sis some respite time?
Since mom returned from rehab and has taken this turn for the worse, my sister has hired a home care giver to come in three hours a day, but that probably won't be enough. Mom has been very resistant to people she "doesn't know" coming into the house (this was before she was in the hospital though), but now she seems to have reconciled herself to the fact she needs more help. My sisters and I (there are four of us altogether) are trying to decide what to do next. The problem is that we all live far apart (I live in Russia, for instance). The closest sister, who lives in TX, was able to visit and give the sis looking after mom some respite for a a week recently, but this will not be regular. They are in the process of applying for Medicaid for mom since none of us are financially well off and home care (or any other form of assistance) gets very expensive. We are still feeling our way in this situation and trying to do what is best for mom. Not easy, as all who have dealt with this problem, know. I am grateful to have found this website where there is so much support and information. Thanks again for your reply.