It also hurts me when I visit him, and I have to lie, and keep looking for excuses to make him understand that he is not coming home. He cries every time I visit, which hurts me, and I also end up crying when I get in the car. The nurses tell me he gets very angry at them if they don't call me. Is this normal behavior for dementia? During the first weeks at the nursing home, he used to tell me he liked the place, the food, the people; maybe he thought it was temporary. Why the change now after almost 4 months?
My MIL with vascular dementia has these bouts,or kicks, or streaks of asking or doing one thing repetitively. For a few weeks it was her phone. She is looking for her phone, wants a phone, needs a phone, can't find her phone, - get the picture? Sometimes it's I want to go home, can you give me a ride home, my sister is coming to take me home....
These dementia "fads" can last for a couple of weeks and sometimes longer before she moves on to the next one.
Dementia is a sad thing. The facility lent us the Maria Shriver dvds. One of the participants was a man with dementia who was blogging his dementia. He felt he was not really present during dementia moments. He worried about going out for the mail that he might wander away in a dementia moment. When we see MIL distressed by her dementia, we really hope she is not there feeling all that anxiety and sadness. Her latest "trend" has been crying with anxiety. They are trying a new med to help alleviate the crying, we'll see how that goes.