Lost and Found

Mom pushing her great granddaughter in her walker. 7/09

Mom being pushed in her wheelchair by her great granddaughters. 7/11

At some point most people with Alzheimer's Disease have problems with wandering or getting lost. Unfortunately, it can end badly. However, some of these stories, however troubling, are a bit amusing. They can be the red flags that signal a new look at keeping the person safe.  There was a time when my mother was able to follow a routine. On Friday mornings at 9:30, my father would go to the store to grocery shop or do errands. At 10:00, my mother would walk to get her hair done.

As her memory issues progressed and physically had more trouble, she needed a prompt to go at the right time and the assistance of an escort. She moved from walking, to the use of a walker, to use of a wheelchair. She got scolded several times for sitting in her walker and scooting along.  She had trouble remembering not to sit and scoot, so someone decided to take the seat off. But then she would forget and sit in it anyway. This was not a good thing.  In order for dad to continue his routine we hired an escort for mom. The aide would make sure mom safely got to her appointment on time. My father would pick her up after her appointment and walk with her back to the apartment.

Then on one day my father returned from the store to learn that mom was missing. When the aide went to get her, she was not in the apartment. She must have remembered to go to the hairdresser after my father left but had forgotten to wait for the escort. She never made it to the hairdresser. Eventually, a couple came home to their apartment to find my mother sitting in their living room and called the assisted living line. Mom was sitting on a couch in a stranger's apartment. She must have gotten lost,  got tired,  found an unlocked door,  went in and sat down. Once she was sitting on the couch, she couldn't get up. (She was at that time using a lift/recliner chair in their apt).  I'm not sure mom ever understood that she got lost. It didn't seem to upset her. It ended fine. Everyone made adjustments, including the couple who left their door unlocked.

It wasn't long after this that mom fell, broke her ankle and ended up in rehab and, ultimately, a permanent placement in the nursing home part of the complex. She has had an extremely hard time finding her room so she was often found in other people's bathrooms or beds - so much so they nicknamed her Goldilocks. It seems that after about a year this happens less frequently but there were months that went by that every time we came to visit mom, she was missing. This was a really upsetting phase but this, too, has seemed to pass. There was one evening when my dad came to visit and, not finding mom, they put out an alert for her. Security even went to dad's apartment to look for her in case she had made it up there. She was finally found in a staff bathroom. After that, she wore a sensor  for about six months. She doesn't try to escape as some do. She basically  has two thoughts:  "I want to lay down so my back feels better" or "I have to go to the bathroom". Now, we mostly find her sleeping in bed. Perhaps there will be GPS attachments for missing patients in the future.