Welcome to Alicia’s monthly advice column where she’ll provide tips on caring for a loved one with dementia. Alicia Seaver is the Director of Memory Care at Bridges® by EPOCH and is a certified memory impairment specialist. This month’s topic is wandering.
The Alzheimer’s Association estimates that six out of 10 people with dementia will wander, a potentially dangerous habit that can result from disorientation and confusion. Fortunately, caregivers can reduce the risk of wandering, or “walking about,” with planning and forethought.
Typically, individuals who have dementia wander for a variety of related reasons, including feeling restless, bored or disoriented—whether in a new place or even a familiar place. Loved ones might also feel the need to “go home” even when at home or feel the compulsion to walk somewhere they used to go, like work, a friend’s house or the store. Or, they might wander after getting lost searching for someone or something.
While walking can help to relieve stress and agitation when in a safe environment, wandering can quickly become unsafe if loved ones wander from their home or family into completely unfamiliar territory. To reduce this risk, I recommend to:
- Note if there is a specific time of day your loved one typically wanders. Use this time to exercise or participate in activities that keep your loved one stimulated. At Bridges® by EPOCH, we place a huge emphasis on our activities program because it is so important to keep individuals with dementia mentally and physically stimulated. Great activities include art projects that engage their minds and hands, scrapbooking and spending peaceful time amongst nature, like, for instance, a walk to a local park.
- Maintain a routine. Maintaining a routine is often the foundation to reducing agitation and stress in loved ones with dementia. Routines provide structure and offer reassurance.
- See that their needs are being met. Sometimes, loved ones wander after simply looking for the bathroom, food or even a place to rest.
- Take safety precautions in the home. Change the placement of locks on doors leading to the outside so they are out of your loved one’s line of sight. Don’t keep car keys out in the open. If you think the problem is serious enough, consider an alarm system that will let you know when a door or window has been opened, or simply place precautionary bells on windows and doors.
- Take safety precautions for your loved one. As suggested by the Alzheimer’s Association, consider emergency response services that include the use of ID jewelry and have your loved one carry a GPS device that will allow you to know their location. It would be wise to have your loved one always carry their identification information and your contact information with them, regardless of whether it’s placed on jewelry or kept in their wallet.
You should also enlist the help of neighbors, friends and community members you trust, asking that they contact you if they see your loved one walking through the neighborhood or out alone.
If they feel compelled to wander, you can also accompany them for a ways while engaging them in conversation in the hopes that they will no longer feel the need to move.
A local paper in Hingham recently wrote about a tactic we use at Bridges® by EPOCH to discourage residents from wandering. Safe within an enclosed courtyard at the community are two ‘bus stops,’ complete with MBTA maps and a stop sign, where residents can sit when they feel the need to wander.
We’ve found that after letting the resident sit for a minute or two on their own, caregivers can greatly help to reduce their agitation or restlessness by simply sitting with them and reminiscing about the resident’s past.
If your loved one does wander, contact your local police and let them know that a person with dementia is missing. As a final precaution, you should prepare a list of places they are likely to wander to—like a former home or favorite spot—so that you and authorities can search as efficiently as possible.
If there is a topic you would like Alicia to discuss, please send suggestions to [email protected].