Wandering/Moving things

Bob

Of late my wife has been wandering (inside the house) more and more, almost non-stop. Thank God has not tried to exit the house during these wanderings. The roaming in itself is disconcerting but on top of this she picks up and moves thing as she wanders. Anything from my pjs, to a coupon laying on the table, to a small rocking chair (actually her rocking chair from when she was a toddler that is now 70+ years old). I've found my shoes in the trash, a puzzle piece (that I thought we had lost) in our bed, something (can't even remember what) in the toilet. I've had to move small pieces of furniture out of the living room and store them in my shop so she won't have them to try to move and hurt herself in the process.

Any similar experiences and/or suggestions?

Shagalon

I had adt security system installed so I would know when the door was opened in case my husband tries to go out.
I also heard someone say that when her mom gets restless and wanders around she has things she can do to keep her busy and her hands occupied. She keeps a basket of loose socks for her mom to put into balls or she will give her a stack of wash cloths to fold. She also puts yarn around the house and asks her mom to help her collect the yarn and help her put it into a ball.

Bob

Thanks,
I have multiple locks (one of which my wife can't reach) on our doors that I put in place at night and even during the day if she starts major wandering. I also have an ADT security system with alarms on all our doors.
I will try to the washed clothes idea. My wife no longer has the cognition necessary to put socks into balls, or ball yarn. I do take her for walks outside, which she enjoys and helps with her anxiety also, but that is dependent on good weather. In general her attention span is quite short so I typically needs lots of diversions and that's difficult when we're talking hours per day of wandering.

Finigan58

It hurts to watch them struggle with an overactive , yet confused mind. She says "I'm overthinking, as usual."
My wife paces constantly. Always soo anxious. She moves things too. Throws them in the trash. She will eat anything that isn't locked up. The best solution I have found is to put things out of sight, lock drawers and cabinets with child proof locks, install door latches high on doors. I have found she doesn't look up, so putting things up high helps. I cover anything I am working on so she will leave it be. Preparing meals, I will put the ingredients out of sight in the oven or even just covered with a dish towel. If I don't ,she will grab raw meat or vegetable scraps and peelings and eat them before I can stop her. We have alarms on all the doors and she wears a GPS for those inevitable times, when I loose track.

dvellio

Wandering and getting lost

If the person you are caring for has dementia and is still ambulatory you may find this article to be helpful.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-inquiry/how-to-find-a-missing-person-with-dementia

dvellio

Dementia patients getting lost.

This is a Canadian article but the same problem exists in every country.

This link is to a PDF copy of the article.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mPtNitn53soiibOZOCGFJl7VunE7lOCs/view?usp=sharing

The link below is the online article.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/canadian-seniors-lost-missing-dementia-1.7061731#:~:text=With%20Canada's%20population%20aging%2C%20new,creeping%20back%20up%2C%20reaching%204%2C667.