Moving a loved one into a care home can be very stressful on the entire family. “Rebecca” had already been caring for her husband “Don” for 5 years when their family doctor strongly recommended she consider a move for Don because of her own failing health. Initially when Don was placed into a care home he appeared to be settling in well, but lately he had begun calling out for her loudly, which was disrupting the staff and residents. Rebecca seemed quite upset by the entire situation when she met with me. She was starting to wonder if she had done the right thing to move him. She informed me that staff had been using medications to calm Don. She found this upsetting because he seemed ‘out of it’ when she was visiting with him.

In order to support someone with dementia-related behaviours, we first need to figure out WHY they are behaving this way. It was obvious to both of us the reason was because he is not in his own home and was probably feeling confused. Don’s new behaviour of often calling out Rebecca’s name now made perfect sense to me, as they had been married and living together for over 50 years!

Discovering the Reason Behind the Behaviour

So there was our answer. Don was anxious that he couldn’t see Rebecca all the time like he used to when he was living at home with her.  Back at the care home, something was needed to acknowledge Don’s requests for wanting to see Rebecca, to reassure him and explain in a simple terms why she was not available at that time using reasoning that would work for him. I recommended to Rebecca that she write a note for the staff to be able to give to Don when he began to call out for her. Together we came up with the wording, “Rebecca is taking a nap just now, but she’ll be here later to be with you.”

Then, to distract him after he reads the note, Rebecca made up a small box for the staff to give to Don in which she placed some engagement tools that she knew her husband enjoyed, such as an old style oversized calculator and some Popular Science magazines. These two strategies worked!  Don didn’t want to disturb Rebecca from her nap, he was satisfied that she would come visit him later, and in the meantime, he had something of interest to do.

A Creative Approach

By discovering the reason for his calling out her name, we were able to alleviate his concern about his loving wife, staff were able to manage this behaviour using a creative approach, he no longer required anti-psychotropic mediations, and Rebecca was now feeling assured that she had indeed done what was best for her and for Don. A win-win-win for all!