"I want to go home" — what it usually really means

If there is one sentence every dementia caregiver knows, it's this one — often said inside the person's own home. After years of hearing it on evening shifts, I stopped treating it as a statement about a place. "Home" usually means: I want to feel safe. I want things to make sense again. That's why explaining "you ARE home" so rarely works — it answers the words, not the feeling.

What helped us: acknowledge the feeling ("You miss home. Tell me about it."), then gently redirect to something with hands and warmth — folding towels, a cup of tea, looking at photos.

Is there a time of day when this hits hardest at your house? Evenings, in my experience — but tell me yours.