During a time when my father-in-law was ill, I sat with him while my mother-in-law went to the grocery store. This store was only a few blocks away from their home and she’d made the trip routinely for years. Only this time, she was gone so long we were worried. Once she finally returned she admitted to getting lost and having had trouble finding her way home. What happened to her is what Alzheimer’s disease experts call wandering.

Wandering can occur during nearly any stage of Alzheimer’s, though people in the later stages of the disease are often the most at risk for a tragic outcome. 

Wandering behavior can happen with little or no warning, as it did with my mother-in-law, but sometimes there are clues if caregivers watch closely for them. As with many things in life, education can help us mitigate risk and possible tragedy.

The Alzheimer’s Foundation of America has published the results of a study titled “Lost and Found: A Review of Available Methods and Technologies to Aid Law Enforcement in Locating Missing Adults with Dementia.” This report contains tips on watching for wandering behavior, preventing wandering, and suggests technology to help law enforcement quickly search for the missing person. The National Alzheimer’s Association offers its download of “Wandering: Who is at Risk?” as a guide for caregivers who want to prevent wandering and quickly find those who do. Both documents are very enlightening. 

Tips to prevent the need to wander

People wander for a reason, so trying to stay ahead of your loved one’s needs can frequently prevent this dangerous behavior. According to the reports, one risk factor is boredom. If the person with dementia is interested in some activity, he or she is less apt to look for something else to do and take off looking for excitement. Also suggested is helping people with AD exercise enough to become tired and hopefully more relaxed. Watching for the need to find a bathroom is another tip. Also, making sure other basic needs such as thirst and hunger are satisfied can help prevent the urge to wander off in search of a solution to a problem they may not fully understand. 

Tips to keep people safe at home

Some of the best tips I’ve encountered to foil the attempts of a person with dementia are locking doors with a key lock placed high on the door where the person is not apt to look, camouflaging doors with paint or wallpaper to help them blend in with the walls, or even placing large STOP signs on exits. The visual cue of the stop sign may be so ingrained in memory that the person would automatically not go beyond that point. 

Keep car and house keys hidden. It’s easy to forget that the person with dementia is not less “smart” than he or she was before developing the disease. A car key spotted on the kitchen table may temp a person who shouldn’t drive to go out and take a spin. Door alarms and even floor mats with an audible alarm to let the caregiver know someone has walked down a particular hallway are available online.