For many caregivers, one of the most sensitive behaviours to navigate is when a person living with dementia expresses a strong need to return “home.”
When this need is triggered, the person may begin packing their belongings, become restless, or insist on leaving.
As others try to reassure them or prevent them from going, their distress can intensify. From their perspective, they may feel unheard, confused, or even trapped. The more they feel their wishes are being blocked, the more anxious, frightened, and resistant they may become.
Imagine for a moment that it was you.
You believe you need to go home, yet people you may not fully recognize are telling you that you cannot leave. No matter how clearly you try to explain yourself, no one seems to understand. It is not difficult, then, to see how fear, anxiety, frustration, and even panic could quickly take hold.
But in dementia care, behaviours are rarely random.
Often, something in the environment quietly triggers this response through memories, habits, or emotions that remain deeply embedded in their brain.
Searching for Home
“Margaret” lives in an assisted living residence. Like many people living with dementia, she sometimes becomes confused about where she is supposed to be living.
In the evenings, staff would sometimes find her packing her belongings. She would say she needed to go home.
Staff tried gentle reassurance. Her family reminded her that she was already living in a safe place where people were there to support her.
But this behaviour seems to persist despite these gentle approaches and reassurances.
Something seemed to be prompting it, although no one was quite sure what.
A Life of Answering Calls
Before dementia entered her life, Margaret spent many years working as a nurse. Her work was not simply a job. It was part of her identity.
For decades, responding to a ringing phone meant something important.
It meant someone needed help.
It meant responsibility.
It meant taking action.
When the phone rang, Margaret answered it. That response had been practiced thousands of times over the course of her career.
This reaction to a ringing phone had become automatic.
Removing the Trigger
Staff began noticing something interesting.
Each time the phone rang in the residence, Margaret would quickly move toward it and pick it up.
Even when a sign was placed beside the phone asking her not to answer it, the behaviour continued. For Margaret, the ringing sound triggered an immediate need to respond, faster than she could stop to read or process the message.
It is quite possible that in Margaret’s mind, the ringing phone signaled that someone needed attention and needed her help.
The ringing phone had become the trigger.
At the nurse’s station, the sound of the telephone and the wider environment of the care home were enough to reinforce a familiar sense that Margaret was not “at home,” but “at work” as a “nurse on night shift” ready to respond.
In that context, her packing and strong desire to “go home” also began to make sense. If she believed she was still at work, then wanting to leave and return home was a natural response to end her shift and get back to where she truly belonged – “home.”
The Simple Solution to Support Margaret’s Changed Behaviour
Eventually, the staff and Margaret’s family tried something simple but powerful.
They removed the phone.
Without the sound of the ringing phone nearby, the behaviour stopped.
While dementia can make it harder to understand new situations, the habits, roles, and routines a person has practiced for many years often stay with them, so deeply rooted in the person in powerful ways.
For Margaret, answering a ringing phone was not about ignoring the instructions on the sign beside it or disobeying the staff in her new home.
Her brain was simply following a pathway it had followed for decades.
In many ways, she was still doing what nurses do: answering ringing phones, responding to call bells, and then going home at the end of a shift.
The Power of Identifying Triggers
Margaret’s story reminds us that behaviours in dementia are often shaped by environmental triggers.
- A sound.
- A familiar routine.
- A piece of furniture.
- Even the time of day.
These triggers can activate memories, habits, and instincts that remain deeply embedded in the brain.
Sometimes the most effective solution is not trying to change the person. It is changing the environment.
When we remove the trigger, the behaviour often fades naturally.
Looking Beyond the Behaviour
When behaviours arise in dementia care, it helps to pause and ask:
What might be triggering this behaviour?
Is there something in the environment prompting it?
Could this behaviour be connected to a past role or routine?
Are we trying to modify the person’s behaviour when we might instead change the environment?
Walking the Path of Understanding
Dementia does not erase the life a person has lived. The roles they carried, the routines they repeated, and the meaning they once made of the world do not simply disappear. Instead, pieces of that life remain, showing up in habits, instincts, and responses that can surface in unexpected ways.
When we pause long enough to look beneath the behaviour, we often find not confusion or “resistance,” but continuity: a person still trying to make sense of their world in the only ways their brain knows how.
Every behaviour is a form of communication. Our role is not to correct it first, but to understand it.
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DISCLAIMER:
This article is based on a true story; however, names, locations, and certain events have been altered to protect the privacy and confidentiality of the individuals involved. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
The contents of this blog are provided for information purposes only. They are not intended to replace clinical diagnosis or medical advice from a health professional.
