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There are many reasons why a person with Alzheimer's disease wanders or walks away from home or a well-known path or area. As the weather gets warmer it is important to recognize that a person with Alzheimer's disease or a related dementia may have the potential to wander. Many individuals like to keep moving. They may be focussed on going to a particular place, or roaming aimlessly. This can happen during the day or night. Sometimes the behaviour leads the person outside, where traffic, bad weather and unfamiliar surroundings can lead to danger.
How you can help?
Try to determine the reasons behind wandering by asking these questions:
- Medication
- Some medications have side effects that result in confusion and restlessness.
Is the person on such medication? If so, consult your physician.
- Stress
- Is the person trying to handle stress, noise, unpleasant people, crowding, or isolation? If so, consider changing the situation.
- Time Confusion
- Does the person become confused at certain parts of the day, such as the middle of the night or early evening? Does the person claim that people have been gone for days or weeks and then searches for them?
- Basic Needs
- Is the person looking for something specific, such as food, drink, the bathroom, or companionship?
- Restlessness
- Does the person have enough movement and activity during the day? Is it possible that the person wanders in order to get up and move around?
- Lack of Recognition
- Is the person in a new or changed physical environment that makes him or her want to search for familiar objects, surroundings or people?
- Fear
- Is the person trying to escape from something frightening? Is the person experiencing a delusion or hallucination, or has the person simply misinterpreted the environment, sights or sounds?
- Past Behaviour
- Is the person trying to meet former obligations involving a former job, home, friend, or family member? Wandering may be frustrating and irritating for caregivers, but it becomes a problem only when the person moves into an unsafe situation, such as getting lost, putting others or self at risk, or invading other people's property. For this reason many caregivers decide to overlook wandering behaviour until it becomes dangerous to the person and/or to others. Otherwise, they permit the person to wander within safe boundaries.
Be aware that wandering may or may not happen. The best advice is to be prepared. Once the person begins to wander or gets lost, you should monitor the person more closely.
Follow these guidelines:
- Encourage movement and exercise
- Allow the person to move within safe areas or make exercise or walks part of your daily routine. Walking, sweeping, and folding clothes all provide a positive experience.
- Be objective
- Don't take the person's wandering behaviour personally. The individual is probably trying to make sense of a world that no longer seems predictable.
- Be aware of hazards
- Review the environment for such hazards as bodies of water, dense foliage, steep stairways, and areas where traffic tends to be heavy.
- Secure your living area
- Do whatever you can to keep your home safe and secure. Place locks out of the normal line of vision. Use double bolt locks. Other effective safety measures include:
- Put hedges or fence around your patio or yard
- Place locks on gates
- Consider electronic buzzers or chimes on your doors
- Place a pressure sensitive mat at the door or person's bedside
- Camouflage some doors with a screen or curtain, or hang a two foot square of dark colour in front of door knob
- Paint door and doorknob same colour as the walls
- Use night lights, signs and familiar objects to help the person move around in a safe area
- Continually reassure the person who may feel lost or abandoned
Register with Safely Home
As a security measure you will want to register the person with the Safely Home -- Alzheimer Wandering Registry. A program designed by the Alzheimer Society of Canada together with the RCMP to help individuals with Alzheimer's disease return home safely following an episode of wandering.
Learn more about Safely Home...
Related information: Wandering and Safely Home
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