Wandering & Spatial Disorientation
Behavioral ConcernsAimless movement or leaving home unmonitored due to loss of spatial navigation.
Wandering affects 60% of dementia patients. Patients move aimlessly or try to "go home," exposing themselves to fall risks, getting lost in city streets, or traffic accidents.
- Insisting on leaving the house to "go to work" based on past memories
- Getting disoriented inside one's own house (unable to find bathroom)
- Nocturnal attempts to unlock exit doors
- Parieto-temporal brain degeneration destroying spatial memory
- Searching for security or familiarity
- Excess unchanneled daytime physical energy
- Any incident of leaving home unmonitored and getting lost in public
- Repeated nighttime door handle manipulation
- Home safety lock & door camouflage installation
- GPS tracking devices & emergency identification cards
- Regulating nocturnal restlessness with non-sedating medical care