Wandering With Dementia Is VERY Dangerous

The worst wandering with dementia story I have is when I went to the top of the stairs to see Mom coming back INTO the house. She had gone out to see if she could find Pop in the middle of the night. The dog had woken me up, which is how I found her. This was near the end of her time living at home, and a crystal clear sign that we hadn’t secured our house sufficiently.

Before that, I would not have considered Mom a “wanderer”, for which I was extremely grateful. Dealing with a wanderer just makes The Job that much more difficult, and is another reason caregivers don’t get a full night sleep. 

My most important message to you—and I should have known this myself—is that dementia is not a stagnant disease, and new symptoms and problems can arise with absolutely no advance notice. So, even if you don’t have a wanderer today…this is just another thing to keep you from sleeping tonight! 

When And Why Does Wandering With Dementia Occur

There are logical, legitimate reasons for dementia patients to become wanderers. You MUST prepare yourself, just in case this becomes your reality one day.

Research shows that Mom looking for Pop is one of the most common reasons for wandering, as well as just being bored with where they were sitting.

Fulfilling needs—using the restroom or getting a snack—is another very common reason for wandering, and in retrospect we had a lot of this. For example, Mom feels a little hungry, so she came into the kitchen. After grabbing a banana, however, she gets a wild hair to check the weather, which leads to trying to go outside to feel the temperature, which could lead to walking up the street. They lose the ability to finish a task—get a banana and go back to watching television—and instead go down the “rabbit hole” of just wandering into potentially unsafe areas.

As much as possible, try to isolate the triggers for your loved one, so you can head them off at the door. Once we started really being aware of Mom’s wandering, we realized a lot of it was about boredom. We knew, for example, that a trip to the kitchen was rarely about getting a snack, so we knew to keep tabs on her when she left the kitchen (without a snack) and headed towards the front door. 

How To Minimize The Wandering With Dementia

As we’ve discussed numerous times, your primary goal is to maintain as much dignity and meaning in life as possible for your loved one. This means that a certain amount of “wandering” is important for them to seek new experiences or new views during the day. What you want to minimize, however, is the dangerous wandering that usually occurs at night. I love that Mom wants to go smell the roses in the backyard during the day, but it’s important that she not exit the house unattended in the evenings. There are several ways you can help minimize the dangerous evening wandering trips:

Exercise during the day

Every single time Big Brother Bob calls Mom, he asks her about what walks she has taken that day—who did she visit, where did she go, etc. He is absolutely right, and brings up a very important factor in eldercare we don’t mention enough. They need exercise!

The saying “Use it or lose it” is extremely true for the elderly, and an important reminder for us to get them up and moving as much as possible. By getting significant exercise during the day, the hope is that you can maintain a normal sleep schedule that will keep your loved one in bed throughout the entire night. Since nighttime wandering is the most dangerous, making sure they are good and tired when they go to bed will help you to minimize this behavior. 

Minimize napping during the day

Along the same line as exercise, keeping the napping to a minimum will help you stop nighttime wanderings. At least 25% of the time I walk into Mom’s room, she has her eyes closed, and this is not a positive thing.

The same boredom that leads them to wander is the cause of all of this napping, and it must be avoided at all costs. While it is an uphill battle to try to stop the little catnaps your loved one takes during the day, you should make every effort to keep them from sleeping at inopportune times. When I see Mom falling asleep, that’s when I recommend a walk to see the birds in the yard, or to come to the kitchen and choose a snack. It won’t stop it completely, but hopefully it helps.

Play defense

I can’t tell you how often I say “Where are you going?” to Mom nowadays. It is a constant question every time she gets up from her chair, or comes out of her room. Between “Where ya goin” and Whatcha doin” I feel like that’s all I say anymore!

But doing that has a logical reason: I want there to be a reason! If our goal is to minimize the mindless and thoughtless wandering, particularly out of the front door, then making sure they have a destination will be helpful.

I will say that sometimes the answer I get is “I just want to walk…” and that is a very reasonable answer! When Mom says that, I accompany her on her walk, keeping her chatting the entire time. The chatting does two things—it helps keep her focused on her task, and it tends to make the walk longer, giving her more exercise.

How To Prevent Problems Developing

“The best defense is a good offense”, or so they say, and we Mayors need to play every position on the field exceptionally well. We can’t ever sit back and wait for the disease to attack us—we must constantly be in fight mode to ensure we are providing the best possible care for our loved one. We need to anticipate every eventuality, and plan accordingly to minimize as many problems as we possibly can.

While I never considered Mom a wanderer, we still took some precautions in case she decided to walk out one day. We weren’t entirely successful in fending off this very dangerous symptom, but I definitely feel we made some headway in keeping Mom as safe as possible.  

Use good locks

Enough said. The locks on our front door were the same as when we moved in 20 years ago, so Mom was very familiar with them—they needed to be changed. We also installed another lock quite high up on the door. She actually could have reached it, but since it was new and inconveniently placed, it just didn’t occur to her.

Create Barriers

Yeah, I’m talking baby gates. In our house, there is an arch between the kitchen/family room and the front of our house. There is absolutely no reason Mom needs to go to the front of the house in the nighttime. So…baby gate the arch. This way, if she gets up and wanders around, she can only stay in the relatively safe area she is most comfortable with, and can’t get near the front door at all. 

Install a monitoring system

We were opposed to wiring our entire house for video, but that is a personal decision, and I absolutely can see the benefits of doing that. It’s up to you how much you are willing to change your home to accommodate your elderly loved one.

We did, however, install a baby monitoring system in her bedroom, because night time was when we were really worried about her wandering with dementia. Daytime we had no problem keeping tabs on where she was and what she was doing. We would turn the monitor on when she went to bed, and this way we were aware of when she got out of bed. If she stayed out of bed longer than a regular bathroom break, I would go to investigate.

This system also kept me alert to her walking towards the front door, because I would hear the bells on both the walker and the front door. I’ve mentioned the bells on our doors and her walker before—definitely a low tech monitoring system, but highly effective day and night!!! 

Minimize access to common items

This trick was learned from her private nurse, who has over 20 years experience caring for dementia patients.

It turns out, dementia patients are attached to some of their routines. So, if she doesn’t have her purse, chances are much lower she will leave the house. Mom associated her purse with leaving the house, so by taking that away she was much less likely to try to leave. I had taken all of the important things out of the purse, but let her have the bag as a “security blanket.”

It turned out, her having the bag was a subconscious signal to her to go to the store! Same thing with car keys, a jacket, anything your loved one normally associated with running errands. Who would have guessed?

What If They Get Out?

This is, of course, the biggest fear for people on The Job.

Hopefully, you can easily catch them in front of the house, or maybe a house or two down the street. If you can’t, obviously 911 is your next step. There are two logical things you need to have at your disposal to, hopefully, make reunification quickly and safely. Be sure you have their “mug shot”. Literally. Keep a very recent picture of your loved one on your phone that is a good headshot. Second, keep an eye on what they are wearing, so you can accurately describe their outfit for the authorities. 

Obviously, our “A Plan” is prevention. Hopefully, if you do everything you can, your worst wandering with dementia story will mirror mine—where Mom was coming back into the house safe and sound.

In the meantime…childproof to your heart’s content!  

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING THIS FAR

Wow! You made it! Thank you for reading about wandering with dementia!

Hey, since you’re here! You may as well check how to talk to grandma, here, or see what the severe stages of dementia might look like here! Or, check out our other topics here! Either way, I appreciate you!

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