People with dementia
People with dementia are vulnerable. If their orientation is affected, they may not remember the way home and may wander off. Use these tips to reduce the risk of someone with dementia going missing.
Contact
Appoint a general contact person who can be contacted if the person with dementia gets lost or if someone comes across them and is concerned.
- Write down the contact’s name and telephone number.
- Share these contact details with the friends and neighbours of the person with dementia. Possibly include a photo of the person with dementia.
- Make sure the person with dementia always carries a “business card” with the details of the contact.
- State on the card that the person has dementia. You can order such a card for free herevia the Dutch Alzheimer foundation.
- You could put the business card in the person’s wallet or handbag, for instance, or attach it to their walking cane or walker.
- An SOS necklace, SOS bracelet,or “help card” could also be useful.
Preparation
If you promote recognizability and create an alert network around the person with dementia, their friends and neighbours will know what to do if they come across the person in a confused state.
Should the person ever go missing, you will have a recent photo to hand that you can show people.
Examples include their coat, car or bicycle; remember to include brand or make, colour and/or registration number. Keep the photos to hand and up to date. Preferably store them in a digital format.
Also share the contact’s details with them, so they can reach this person if necessary.
The police will then make a note of this in their systems. Should the person ever go missing, the police will be able to act quickly and effectively.
Someone with dementia will often go to a place they know from the past. You can get the person with dementia to help you draw up the list. They may know more than you do, particularly about the past.
Such measures could include hanging bells on the doors or putting a sensor in the doormat, installing a GPS tracker on the person’s means of transport, or putting in extra locks. Try to install these locks in places where the person with dementia won’t look for them.
- Be aware, however, that, if there are extra locks on doors, the person may not be able to escape quickly in the event of danger, such as fire.
- Click herefor additional information about GPS systems. Some apps and devices are already equipped with this feature. iPhones have the ‘Find My Friends’ feature and Google Maps enables you to share a GPS location.
Outdoors
People with dementia may wander if they are no longer aware of where they are. Possible ways to prevent this include:
- Make sure the person’s home is easy to see and recognise from the outside. For example, trim the hedge and/or hang a recognisable item on the front wall, or paint the front a special colour. Don’t make any changes, however, if the person wouldn’t be able to get accustomed to them. In that case, a new colour might have the opposite effect.
- Make sure there are helpful identification marks in the vicinity of the house.
- Stick to the same walking routes with the person with dementia to help them recognise and remember those routes. See the video below.
At home
By partly obscuring the way out of the house, you will diminish any stimulus to open a door. The measures listed below will conceal the most logical way out of the house, and thus reduce the person with dementia’s urge to go outside.
- Hang a curtain in front of the door.
- Don’t hang coats in sight or near the door.
- Post a large photograph, sticker or poster on the inside of the door.
- Hang a “No exit” sign on the inside.
- Make sure the garden is well enclosed. In this way, the person with dementia will be less inclined to go out on the street. Make sure the door gives directly on to grass or gravel and that there are no paths leading to the outside gate. Fences and outside gates can be equipped in the same way as doors (i.e., with bells and extra locks).