The post about dementia sufferers and their tendency to wander (May 6) evoked a host of stories about temporarily lost parents, grandparents, friends and relations. Almost everyone, it seems, has such a story — and unfortunately, those who haven’t may collect one or two in the future. Reader Cathy Jensen sent a poignant tale of a friend who went wandering in his pajamas during the pre-dawn hours, but was found by the garbage collectors and brought home on the back of their truck. And reader Tom McAfee, en route to see his own mom and hopefully jog memories of children and grandchildren with photos, sent a link to a podcast aired on WNYC in March.
An offbeat idea, the WNYC piece explains, turned out to be a good solution for a nursing home in Germany from which residents were wandering off. Administrators created a bus stop in front of the home, complete with bench and a painted sign for a bus that never came. It provided a place where many wanderers could sit and wait until the urge to go back home, or elsewhere, melted away. Might not work everywhere, but it worked in Dusseldorf.
And reader JTMcKay4 sent, in case you missed them in the comments section, links to the Alzheimer’s Association’s “Safe Return” program and to a source for a long list of related documents. State-specific advance directive forms can also be downloaded, free, from the “Caring Connections” site maintained by the National Hospice and Palliative Care Association site, and this space remains committed to the support of the nonprofit Compassion and Choices, from which forms can also be downloaded.
There is no guarantee against winding up in a memory unit. But a little preparation can go a long way toward helping if the time comes.
