Your family and especially your FIL will be in my thoughts and prayers. He knew what he wanted. Heres hoping his passage is peaceful and pain free. Nan

Lee,
May his final journey be peaceful !

my husband has been in a nursing facility for 5 months. Alot of mental confusion, some days very cognitive. My question is: For the holidays, is it best to brin g him home for a few hours and return him to the nursing home or is this too confusining and upsetting for a LP patient. He is in very good physical shape, sadly just the mental problems. My children seem to feel it would be cruel to bring him home and take him back. He is always asking to go home. Please help, don't know what to do. We've had a wonderful 52 years together.

There are some who will disagree but, for the most part, in my opinion, it's not a good idea to take residents with dementia 'home' and then back again to the facility. My next door neighbor and others I know have tried it and it seems to cause a lot of confusion and decline in condition for several days afterward. Moreover, they often don't enjoy much socializing beyond a few minutes of friendly conversation and find it tiring. My husband wearies of 'chatter' very quickly and makes it known.

Although it may seem like a good idea to have him home for a major holiday, I think it is not a good idea, for the reasons that have already been given. And if he has good cognitive moments, it may make him more sad, angry, depressed & frustrated that he cannot stay at home and has to return to his dementia facility. As many on the forum have expressed in other places, he may not actually even recognize "home" from where he now resides. There were days my dad asked to "go home" and he meant the town where he was born and hadn't lived in over 70 years! Home becomes confused for many of our LOs.

To me it would make a lot of sense for the confusion when they are taken home for a short period of time, look how many times they are confused long before placement just doing the everyday things !