Tips For Preventing Wandering in Alzheimer's Disease: Home is Where the Heart Is

Where are the patients with Alzheimer’s disease who wander around nursing homes, hospitals or even their own homes, trying to go? Do they ever really get there?

The article, “Alzheimer's: Understand and control wandering” acknowledges the reality of the complexity of problems faced by family members and caregivers when a patient has Alzheimer’s disease.  

“Alzheimer's disease can erase a person's memory of once-familiar surroundings, as well as make it difficult to adapt to new surroundings.”

Mentally, Alzheimer’s patients are regressing. Where they have been in the past may be where they are continually trying to go, as they wander around. Wandering can be or become a serious concern for family members or others who are taking care of patients with Alzheimer’s disease. With mental, emotional, spiritual and physical problems that have taken place over many years, the unraveling of their medical histories can prove to be relatively complex.

Consider the following tips to prevent wandering in Alzheimer’s disease:

Identify where the Alzheimer’s patient is trying to go.

“Home is where the heart is,” the old adage reads. “I want to go home!” an elderly Alzheimer’s patient insists. “Where is home?” his or her family members or caregivers ask, knowing that home could be any place where he or she may have lived at one time or another. 

Note that the meaning of the word home can vary depending upon the stage of Alzheimer’s disease that the patient is experiencing. In other words, in the early stages, home can be where a patient has just been, like the home of a family member. Later, home may be the place where a parent has raised his or her children. As the disease progresses, home may become the place where the patient grew up. Discerning where home is to the Alzheimer’s patient can prove to be an important diagnostic tool.   

Safety is a primary concern for Alzheimer’s patients who tend to wander.

Family members and caregivers on every level, need to be alert to a multiplicity of potential dangers that Alzheimer’s patients can encounter when wandering. It is not just their personal safety, but also the safety of others that they should be concerned about, as a wandering patient may try to go anywhere and engage in any kind of activity. Many Alzheimer’s patients actually do get lost; some of them are aware they are lost, while others are not.

Patient identification is vital for the safety of a patient with Alzheimer’s disease, as he or she may not be able to identify him or herself to others. At times, in more advanced Alzheimer’s disease, particularly when it is associated with dementia, the use of wristbands and ankle bracelets may prove beneficial and give some degree of patient freedom. Hospitalization in a locked ward, allows an Alzheimer’s disease patient to wander freely, as long as other patients are not in danger.  

Is the Alzheimer’s patient confused, disoriented and upset?      

When an Alzheimer’s disease patient is wandering, he or she may be in touch with reality at times, but often it is interspersed with moments of non-reality, disorientation and confusion, which can be upsetting to him or her and others. He or she may or may not recognize family members or caregivers.

Assessing the mental status of a patient with Alzheimer’s disease, as quickly as possible and using caution when approaching this patient at all times, is important.

Depending upon the stage of the disease and the state of mind that an Alzheimer’s patient is in, he or she may be responsive, partially responsive or non-responsive to his or her family members or caregivers, when he or she is wandering. Remember that wandering is not always physical; it can be mental or emotional wandering too.

Patients with Alzheimer’s disease often experience mixed emotions or a sudden change in emotions. In other words, a wandering patient may be upset, angry and even become aggressive when approached by family members or caregivers, particularly if he or she is re-living a particularly difficult time in his or her life. At other times, he or she may appear to be happy and content, even though he or she is lost.

Documentation of symptoms is important in terms of mental regression.

Because Alzheimer’s disease is a progressively deteriorating disease, the documentation of symptoms by family members and friends becomes increasingly important, particularly when a patient tends to wander. Ongoing research may reveal a multiplicity of hidden mysteries with respect to wandering as it pertains to patients with Alzheimer’s disease.