Abstract
This study examined the adjustment needs and efforts of individuals with dementia after relocation to a residential care facility. This was a qualitative prospective study that involved in-depth face-to-face interviews with 16 individuals with dementia and their family caregivers at 2 and 6 months post-relocation. In their efforts to recreate a sense of home, individuals with dementia had to meet three major highly interrelated and overlapping categories of needs to settle in, fit in, and find meaning in this transition. The satisfactory fulfillment of these adjustment needs resulted in a sense of comfort, connection, and continuity associated with feeling at home. Participants’ efforts to place themselves in their new living environments created a simultaneous need to integrate relocation into their overall sense of self. The results support earlier research indicating that place making is a critical process in the overall psychosocial adjustment to old age. The findings inform supportive interventions to assist individuals with dementia to reconstruct home in a residential care environment.