Keeping the Keys Out of Reach of Alzheimer’s Patients
The tendency to escape…from home, the nursing home, daycare….is common with Alzheimer’s patients. Most seem to develop a cleverness when it comes to circumventing locks and hooks on doors. They even learn to slip into an elevator when the door opens, then descend to the main floor of a nursing home or apartment where they can proceed outside.
You may hear on the news how a patient got outside and wandered away from a nursing home or their home. They seem to have some instinct, some radar, that tells them when someone isn’t in the room.
I had trouble with Auntie and Mother concerning this. Mother even learned to take a broom handle and slip open a hook above her normal reach on a door.
In the nursing home where Mother lived for nearly nine years, there was a keyed elevator. One had to insert a key to use it. That way the residents couldn’t simply push the button, open the door, slip in and descend to the ground floor. However, many would find the key, so the staff continually had to change its location.
(I didn’t have to worry because Mother was in a wheel chair much of the time she lived there, so didn’t try to escape. However, she did try many escape maneuvers when she resided in a previous home for a few months. She even packed her suitcase and set it outside a back door, then slipped out another door and was “caught” crossing the parking lot with her bag.
“I almost fooled them,” she told me.)
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POSTED IN: Alzheimer's/Care, Alzheimer's/General, Alzheimer's/Misc, Alzheimer's/Personal Caregiving Experiences
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