If your elderly loved one has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, you probably have questions about how your future will look as you care for your loved one during the disease’s progression. You may choose to have your loved one move in with you, or if you live near your loved one, you might help her live at her home for as long as possible by providing regular check-ins. You can also explore Alzheimer’s home care services to help care for them.
The Risk of Wandering
There’s no exact path that anyone with Alzheimer’s disease will follow. There’s not a set timeline for symptoms to develop, and some symptoms may be skipped entirely while others might become more overwhelming than you ever expected.
The symptom of wandering occurs in almost all Alzheimer’s patients at some point. Wandering refers to the desire of an Alzheimer’s patient to be somewhere else, whether or not she can articulate where that “other place” is. It can often put the patient in danger of becoming lost or putting themselves in danger by wandering into unsafe situations.
Signs Your Loved One Might Wander Soon
While it’s impossible to predict the course of the symptoms of Alzheimer’s, when it comes to wandering, that’s no different. But if you or Alzheimer’s home care providers begin to see a pattern developing, like the examples below, you’ll need to take appropriate action to keep your loved one safe.
- Articulating that they want to go home. Your loved one may request to go home even if she’s lived with you for years. Home may not be a current physical location; it can be more of a state of mind.
- Taking longer to get back home from a familiar place. If your loved one is still driving or walking places on her own, but you’ve noticed that it takes her much longer to get home, it might be that she’s getting lost along the way and struggling to find her way home.
- Getting lost within the home. If your loved one walks down the wrong hallway to get to her bedroom more often or can’t find the back door, this indicates she will struggle in larger places on her own and may need an Alzheimer’s home care provider to help with all transportation needs now.
- Restlessly paces around in the evening. If your loved one seems like she can’t sit still, and you find her pacing around the home or the yard, that pacing may lead to leaving the home to keep her legs moving even if she has no idea where she wants to go. This type of wandering can be especially dangerous as your loved one can easily become lost and disoriented once out of the home.
- She talks about needing to go somewhere and perform some tasks she no longer does. She may say she needs to pick up the kids from school or go to work. Without proper supervision from family or Alzheimer’s home care providers, she might drive to these places and then become confused once she arrives and is not able to complete the task she thought she was supposed to do.
Alzheimer’s Home Care Providers Can Help Keep Your Loved One Safe
Having someone watch over your loved one when you are away will help keep your loved one safe. An Alzheimer’s home care provider can come to the home to interact, engage, and watch over your loved one, keeping her safe and giving you peace of mind.
If you or an aging loved one are considering Alzheimer’s Home Care in Point Loma, CA, please contact the caring staff at Aaron Home Care. (619) 880-5522
A Trusted Home Care Agency Serving La Jolla, Pacific Beach, Point Loma, San Diego, UTC, La Mesa, Chula Vista, Coronado, Bonita, Eastlake, and the surrounding areas.
In 1999, Aaron was named Residential Program Manager of a group home for disabled adults in Arlington, Virgina. Here, he built a reputation for being compassionate with his clients and efficient in company operations. In the years that followed, Washington DC’s human services field went through unprecedented reform when the city was fined $11 million for the previously unchecked abuse, neglect, and exploitation of the very population it was supposed to protect. In 2005, Aaron was selected by a watchdog company to co-create and implement a monitoring system to safeguard and advocate for the system’s most vulnerable residents. This system is still in use today.
Aaron is now using his unique gifts and profound experience in the human service field to provide San Diego County Seniors with dependable, compassionate caregivers through Aaron Home Care.
He currently serves on the board of the San Diego Regional Home Care Council and is an active member of the Senior Advocate Network of San Diego.
Aaron Home Care is a member of the American Board of Home Care and is accredited by the Better Business Bureau.
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