Ionic: close the side menu but dont set state to root

I want to use a side menu:

<ion-side-menus enable-menu-with-back-views="true">
    <ion-side-menu-content>
        <ion-nav-bar class="bar-positive" align-title="center">
            <ion-nav-back-button>
            </ion-nav-back-button>

            <ion-nav-buttons side="left">
                <button class="button button-icon button-clear ion-navicon" menu-toggle="left">
                </button>
            </ion-nav-buttons>
        </ion-nav-bar>
        <ion-nav-view name="menuContent"></ion-nav-view>
    </ion-side-menu-content>

    <ion-side-menu side="left" width="300">
        <ion-content>
            <div class="list">
                <a class="item item-icon-left left no-border" ui-sref="app.home" menu-close>
                    <i class="icon menu-icon ion-home"></i>
                    <h2>Hom</h2>
                </a>
                <a class="item item-icon-left left no-border" ui-sref="app.account" menu-close>
                    <i class="icon menu-icon ion-person"></i>
                    <h2>Item 1</h2>
                </a>
                <a class="item item-icon-left left no-border" ui-sref="app.orders" menu-close>
                    <i class="icon menu-icon ion-android-list"></i>
                    <h2>Item 2</h2>
                </a>
            </div>
        </ion-content>
    </ion-side-menu>
</ion-side-menus>

As you can see im using the menu-close directive because i want the side menu to hide when i clicked on an item. The problem is that using this menu-close directive the state of the selected item is set to be the root. That means if i press the back button i wont get navigated back.

How can i close the menu when i click on an item without setting the selected view to be the root of the state?

I solve this doing the following in my menu item controllers:

angular.module("App.Home", [])

.config(function ($stateProvider, $urlRouterProvider) {
    $stateProvider.state("app.home", {
        url: "/home",
        views: {
            "menuContent": {
                templateUrl: "templates/menu_home.html",
                controller: "HomeController"
            }
        }
    });
})

.controller("HomeController", function($scope, $ionicSideMenuDelegate) {
    $ionicSideMenuDelegate.toggleLeft(false);
});

EDIT

The following is an even better solution:

Just add a controller to your side menu:

<ion-side-menu side="left" width="300" ng-controller="MenuController">

And this to your controller:

angular.module("App.Menu")

.controller("MenuController", function($scope, $ionicSideMenuDelegate) {
    $scope.toggleMenu = function() {
        if($ionicSideMenuDelegate.isOpenLeft()) {
            $ionicSideMenuDelegate.toggleLeft(false);
        } else {
            $ionicSideMenuDelegate.toggleLeft(true);
        }
    }
});

In your menu items you just need to call:

<a class="item item-icon-left item-left item-no-border" ui-sref="app.home" ng-click="toggleMenu()">

and everything is working like a charm.