Behavioural Problems/dementia patients?

I AM WORKING WITH DEMENTIA PATIENTS AND I AM HAVING DIFFICULTIES WITH AN 85 YEAR OLD LADY WHO IS STOPPING EVERYONE THAT PASSES HER,AND SAYING "I WANT TO GO HOME, MY BABY IS CRYING". WHAT STRATEGIES WOULD YOU PUT INTO PLACE TO MANAGE THIS BEHAVIOUR?

My mother is very much like this. She is not able to understand that what she is saying is unreal. But at some later time, she will suddenly recall that she has been talking unreasonably. When she says things like this, the best way to calm her is to just tell her OK, you will help her do whatever she is asking for. You just have to keep putting it off until she goes on to some other thought. It seems hard to do, but arguing with them will only make it much worse. Placating and calming is the best strategy. Another way is to redirect her thoughts.
Like, "Ok, Sally, we will do that, but first lets have something to eat." (or whatever it is that she needs to do at the time).

Try talking to other staff as the more experienced can help you. However I have had some experience and usually if you go along with what they are saying and get others to aswel by saying something like "after breakfast we will take you home and you can see your baby" they feel satisfied that others undertand their needs and will usually stop this behaviour. If they are being ignored or told to be quiet this behaviour will contiinue or even get worse.

Redirect her. Tell her that the baby is fine and being taken care of. Then redirect her to a different activity.

My grandmother passed about 2 years ago. she had dementia also. she thought my grandfather should be at work, but had been retired for about 25 years. it is a strange illness, but looked at it as being a blessing because she seamed to be living in an era of her life that was some of the best days of her life, all i could advise is to reassure her that someone (maybe a sister or her mother) is watching her baby while she is in the hospital. i know it is lying to her in a way, but it would ease my grandmother most of the time. i would tell papa was taking the day off to visit everyone. God bless you for taking on this challenge and good luck.

You have asked a good question here. Regrettably you brought it to a location on the Internet where good people could unintentionally give you bad counsel, even as I have done, here on Yahoo Answers. Your question is more important than that and you should seek a more qualified assessment than you might find here.

There are some places on the Internet you can type keywords in to find web sites with a world of information that can help. Some are http://search.yahoo.com , http://google.com , and http://Ask.com just to name a few. There are other search engines on the Internet that are highly specialized in the kind of help you seek such as http://www.webmd.com/.

Good luck in your endeavors and I hope you find the answers you seek.
Jon

when I worked with dementia patients i found it easier to play along or distracted them with another activity. Just remember that they believe that what is happening in their head is real. If this does not worked also try a baby doll one of our residents had a baby doll which she cared for