5thCommandment

As Mom’s dementia progressed, we needed to determine how to keep her from wandering. We had already had a scare. She wandered off from church. Mom went to a familiar location because she became confused about where and when we would pick her up from her weekly church services. She went to her service on Saturday and then went with us on Sundays. She also wandered off from the house. Mom was confused about her family and went looking for her mom. We caught up with her before she was too far down the street but it was still scary.

After those scares I gave her an ID bracelet to wear with her name, my name, and my phone number. She was not used to the bracelet. She pulled on it until it broke. I tried a metal bracelet and she cut that one with scissors. We had already decided to rotate through who went to church with her on Sundays, but we still needed a way to find her if she wandered off while we were in public and at home.

At home we installed door locks that were too high for her to reach. We put the sliding security keyless locks on the front and back doors. She never opened the garage door so that one could stay with a normal deadbolt. The locks did what we needed to keep her safe at home. This was one more step that we needed to take when she entered the wandering phase of her dementia journey. We also had a camera at the door bell and one on the porch that alerted us if she walked onto the porch. With the doors locked she did not do that but it was still a back up system for us.

As your loved one goes through their dementia, they will remember days past and think that those days are present time. Survey your home. Look for ways that your loved one might be tempted to leave in search of the past. The locks we found worked great but you may need another system.