Wandering around at night

Pinky33

Registered User
Mar 12, 2017
1
0
Hi

This is my first post to the forum and wonder if anyone can help! Has anyone had experience with dementia sufferers leaving the house during the night?

She's an independent lady in her 90s who lives alone, is still very social and is mostly fine during the day time, with help only for meal times so she doesn't leave the cooker on. She has been getting very confused with the time of day over the last year (making phone calls at 3/4am) but this is the first time she's actually left the house which was very worrying!

She knew where she was going (her event was for 10am the next day) but luckily someone spotted her walking at 3am in the dark and told her the time so she came home.

How do we stop this happening again?
 

GeorgiaL

Registered User
Mar 12, 2017
6
0
Dead lock the doors

This is simple. Just dead lock the doors. I know it sounds bad but it's the only way to protect her. Unfort it's like she's reached a new stage of dementia and she thinks night is day and day is night. You need to make a clear distinction between night and day and show her the clock and calm her. It can be scary to feel locked in a house, but at least you know she won't go out alone. If you have a key you can open the door and go out with her and show her it's night, but she she's with you!
 

GeorgiaL

Registered User
Mar 12, 2017
6
0
Does she live alone?

Sorry i thought you lived with her but if she lives alone she can't do this anymore. She needs to live with someone.
 

Raggedrobin

Registered User
Jan 20, 2014
1,425
0
Hi Pinky
I am afraid I am not writing with solutions but just to say yes, this is very common. First of all people with dementia easily suffer a day/noght reversal. I could show my mother that it was pitch black outside and she would look at it and swear i was daytime. Once she wanted to go to the hairdressers at about 2 am. We decided to drive her there, to show her it was shut. She was most put out that this and all the shops were shut, what the hell was wrong with everyone, she said? So that didn't work.

Becoming active at night, and wandering, unfortunately denotes a point where a person who lives alone is a danger to themselves. She may no longer be safe to live alone. I'm sure some other posters will be along with ideas from their experiences but sadly for me it became the point at which my mother had to go into a care home for her own safety.
 

canary

Registered User
Feb 25, 2014
25,018
0
South coast
Another one here whose mum did the same.
You can get door alarms to alert you or play a message like "its night mum - go back to bed" if the door is opened, but I think they probably only work if someone else is in the house. It certainly didnt work for mum/me. It was the point at which I too started looking at care homes, although in the end she had a TIA and went into a care home straight from hospital.
 

Linbrusco

Registered User
Mar 4, 2013
1,694
0
Auckland...... New Zealand
Unfortunately this was another cause for us to consider care for my Mother.
Despite my parents living behind us, Mum started waking at 3/4am, turning all the lights on, looking out her curtains to see if our lights were on, opening and shutting doors.
Dad never understood Mums Alzheimers at all, so it just cause alot of shouting and arguing.

Bed & door alarms were a no go with Dad, ( it would just add to his temper) so it was only a matter of time before Mum wandered out at night.
We tried day/night clocks too.
 

MERENAME

Registered User
Jun 4, 2013
236
0
scotland
My Mum has mirtazapine, a glo clock, a bed sensor and door alarms. They have worked, mainly the mirtazapine but the other things too. She responded well to the simplicity of the glo clock and I wish I had tried that at the start. Cheap and non invasive but it needs someone to set it every night. The rather expensive dementia clock just didn't work for Mum at all at night but was useful during the day.
 

Early Girlie

Registered User
Jul 5, 2015
66
0
St Albans
We had a very scary night wandering experience a few weeks back, and my hubby is still in early stages.
He woke up at 3am and took the dog out for a walk. How I didn't wake up is still a mystery. Anyway, at some point, he abandoned the dog and stole an ornamental shrub from someone's garden, dragging it back home in its tub. I was woken by the kind people who had found our dog and taken her in, ringing to let me know she was safe. I had my husband in bed fully dressed and covered in blood where he had fallen a few times, the patio doors were wide open and the shrub was on the living room floor. There was a trail of soil up the road to the point where he had dropped the tub.
We are referring to it as a The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time But at the time, I was terrified of what could have happened.
I now lock the doors and have the keys on my bedside table, and I hide the dog's lead under the bed.

EG
 

Bod

Registered User
Aug 30, 2013
1,958
0
We had a very scary night wandering experience a few weeks back, and my hubby is still in early stages.
He woke up at 3am and took the dog out for a walk. How I didn't wake up is still a mystery. Anyway, at some point, he abandoned the dog and stole an ornamental shrub from someone's garden, dragging it back home in its tub. I was woken by the kind people who had found our dog and taken her in, ringing to let me know she was safe. I had my husband in bed fully dressed and covered in blood where he had fallen a few times, the patio doors were wide open and the shrub was on the living room floor. There was a trail of soil up the road to the point where he had dropped the tub.
We are referring to it as a The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time But at the time, I was terrified of what could have happened.
I now lock the doors and have the keys on my bedside table, and I hide the dog's lead under the bed.

EG

Could the dog be trained, to bring him back?
Sorry just an idle thought.

Bod
 

Raggedrobin

Registered User
Jan 20, 2014
1,425
0
Oh Earlie Girlie, that is absolutely awful and must have been so frightening but I am afraid it did also make me chuckle, the Incident of the Dog in the Night. :)
 

Trisha4

Registered User
Jan 16, 2014
2,440
0
Yorkshire
This must be impossible with someone living alone. My husband hasn't ever gone out at night but as he gets up and wanders about inside at night I take all the keys to bed with me so that he can't open any external doors. It sounds as if she isn't safe alone at night any more.


Sent from my iPad using Talking Point
 

Philbo

Registered User
Feb 28, 2017
853
0
Kent
Hi Pinky33

I had a few problems with my wife wandering off when out and about back in the summer. The first time, we were out with her sister and the two of them when into the public loos and I went to the gents.

I waited got out side first (or so I thought) and her sister emerged asking if my wife was already out? Turned out the wife must have come straight back out and had wandered off! Much panic and to cut a long and worrying story short, I found her sitting in our local pub!

Through a local carer's support charity (that works in partnership with out county council), I was offered a tracker-type watch. It's called a Vega and supplied by an organisation called Centra Pulse. They provide the unit and operate a monitoring centre (we also got their SOS lifeline Tunstall system).

So if she goes missing (not very often as I'm always with her) we can call the centre and they can see where she is (it uses either GPS or the mobile phone signal). You can get the "watch" with either a non-locking or locking strap. I chose the latter and I remove it at night (it is water-resistant).

Where something like this may be helpful for you, is you can also set up a geographical ring-fence. So for instance, it could either be if she goes out of the house, or say a certain area away from the house. The device then alerts the centre who contact those people registered on the system (like yourself). They can then inform you of the PWD's location, so you can either get someone local to go and find her or maybe get the police involved?

I realise this may not be suitable for you but just a thought?

Good luck.
Phil