More Wander Off in Fog of Age

[groovedaddy]

ASHBURN, Va. — For generations, the prototypical search-and-rescue case in America was Timmy in the well, with Lassie barking insistently to summon help. Lost children and adolescents — from the woods to the mall — generally outnumbered all others.

But last year for the first time, another type of search crossed into first place here in Virginia, marking a profound demographic shift that public safety officials say will increasingly define the future as the nation ages: wandering, confused dementia patients like Freda Machett.

Ms. Machett, 60, suffers from a form of dementia that attacks the brain like Alzheimer’s disease and imposes on many of its victims a restless urge to head out the door. Their journeys, shrouded in a fog of confusion and fragmented memory, are often dangerous and not infrequently fatal. About 6 in 10 dementia victims will wander at least once, health care statistics show, and the numbers are growing worldwide, fueled primarily by Alzheimer’s disease, which has no cure and affects about half of all people over 85.

“It started with five words — ‘I want to go home’ — even though this is her home,” said Ms. Machett’s husband, John, a retired engineer who now cares for his wife full time near Richmond. She has gone off dozens of times in the four years since receiving her diagnosis, three times requiring a police search. “It’s a cruel disease,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/05/us/05search.html?th&emc=th

[Captain Hilts]

1. Yeah. I've sent this article to a friend whose mother has said "I want to go home" in her own home.

[SheilaT]

2. I have noticed in recent years more

and more of those kinds of stories, the ones of older people wandering off. It's why Alzheimer's Units are locked units, but a lot of older people with dementia are not in locked units. Plus, 60 is so young to have dementia. I'm 61, and can't imagine being in the fog already. I've got years and years ahead of me to do things that I need to be mentally present for.

[RandomThoughts]

3. I think I understand that.

The idea of wanting something better, versus realizing people have to build that better place. Although there can be help.

There are many doors, and many places to be, some places should be walked out of, and some others should be gone into.

But getting out creates someone just trying to leave instead of fixing where they are, and by doing better things finding the door. Since I think fixing things are making part of life the better ways, of love and kindness.

I hope he finds peace. I to have had doors I have tried to find in my life, and times when I wanted to find a door out, but I sort of found that helping people out of their hardship was a door of its own. And although there is not much only one person can do, sometimes there are little ways a person can make things better where ever they are.

And I also have found so many people that try and share love with people, and have helped me find peace.


But I understand those thoughts. Almost a transfer of emotional strife to real world action. Some hardship or pain from the past in mental thought being translated to a real world action like trying to leave where a person is. A running from oneself as a person tries to leave a home, many times a home that loves them.

But they are trying to leave a home of love, because their mind is translating from an emotional or memory home of despair. It is a tough situation, and many have those thoughts and they are difficult.

Again I hope for peace of spirit and mind for those in such struggles.

[Warpy]

4. Wandering is how they deal with stress

so anyone who is caring for someone with Alzheimer's at home needs to make a well fenced back yard available, the gate locked. The front door should be secured with a simple chain or bolt lock at the top. The person will jiggle the doorknob for hours but never look up. It's weird.

The worst thing to try to do is restrain them. That's when violence is most likely to result.

Around here, it's old people driving their cars to scenic lookouts and wandering out into the desert when it's time to go, seldom is any dementia mentioned. They're usually found by air patrol after they're gone.

[Chemisse]

6. That is interesting about the need to wander

It must be very upsetting to be cooped up and have that need to go somewhere.

[Duer 157099]

5. When I dream, the setting is almost always that of my childhood

The house, the neighborhood, etc.

I think that childhood memories are housed in an area of the brain that is preserved during, say, AD. So, I think that's probably what people are talking about.

From what I recall, AD is selective for certain types of memory.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

8. Newer memories go first.

So that's why elders will remember all about their childhood, where they grew up, when they were raising a family.

I think that's why Alzheimer's therapy is about going through scrapbooks and drawing on those memories, in a secure environment.

My mom and dad were both diagnosed with Alzheimer's by a neurologist, but they both knew where they were and still recognized people. Mom just got impossible to deal with and would not go into a nursing home even though two docs told her to, and she couldn't live by herself.

I took care of her the last three months of her life at my house, until she died of a heart attack, and it was almost too much for me to bear. I had to pick her up under the shoulders and sit her up in bed, and then turn her legs out to the floor, and then pick her up to a standing position so she could walk. She was taller than me but was quite thin so I was able to do that. I would help her sit down in the same way. Mostly she slept all day in the recliner.

I would get angry and start screaming in the back yard. And that was just for a short time. I really don't know how some people can be caregivesr and not go completely nuts.

[hedgehog]

7. I'll never forget the time I was waiting to pay a gas store clerk trying to

give directions to an elderly lady ahead of me. She was very well dressed and carefully coiffed and made up. She finally gave up, thanked the clerk and left. As she was leaving she said something that caught my ear, so I paid quick and ran out and caught her. She was very confused. She had lived in the area for years, but couldn't figure out where the gas station was. It's on a major 4 lane divided highway that used to be a 2 lane road. Clearly she couldn't match her interior map of the area to the current reality. I was able to flag down some police officers to come and see to her safety.