Hi Sue,
My Dad is an avid walker too. walks so much during the day but thankfully not too much yet at night. He did go through a phase of getting up very early (5am) and setting off the alarm (my sister lives next door to him and puts his alarm on every night). We started to put a sign on the door at night that said "Don't go out until Helen comes in" or something like that. It took a while before he stopped trying to go out early, I think the alarm started to get through to him.... (though he did it again this morning because he went to bed very early the evening before). We try to keep him up as long as possible so he sleeps well and long. He gets up about 7 -7.30 now (or 8 if we are lucky
)by which time we are in with him most days.
Occasionally he is disorientated/distressed/having a bad day as far as Time and Reality are concerned and wants to go out very early or very late but if we go with him for a short distance we can often get him to settle. One of the few things he gets almost aggressive about is if we ever try to stop him walking. It is what makes us hesitate so much about getting him into full time care. It would destroy him not to be able to walk. This evening he wasn't back after 50 mins (normally he is back after 20 mins or so, or 40 mins if he does two rounds of the block !) so I went looking for him and found him on one of his routes, and he said he couldn't find his way home. He would have made it eventually I reckon but I never like to leave him out too long.
We and his carers go out with him sometimes, but not always, as he can be a bit obsessive about it going back out almost imediately he has come in. but having monitored him for some time now, he has modified his routes the more confused he has become. he does shorter walks more frequently now and we regularly ask if if he is going astray.
I am not sure that Dad could be termed a "wanderer" as such and has vascular dementia rather than AD. Walking is one of the few things that he does (along with praying) and it would be sad to try and stop him.
Its hard work keeping up with him but his quality of life is not so bad.
Helen