Those who suffer from forms of dementia that attack the brain, including Alzheimer’s disease, are increasingly prone to urges to wander away from their homes, according to an article in The New York Times.
The article states that approximately six in 10 individuals with dementia will wander at least once. Health statistics indicate that this number is growing mainly due to Alzheimer’s disease, which affects about half of all people over age 85. These wanderings often require police search and are dangerous, sometimes even fatal.
The rising numbers make it necessary to retrain emergency workers, police officers, and volunteers, since normal search procedures don’t apply in the dementia cases.
For example, unlike lost children or hikers, dementia wanderers attempt to avoid detection, often because their dementia has made them paranoid about authority figures. And because Alzheimer’s disease erases most recent memory first, searchers must often learn about people’s history, to uncover clues to where they might be.
View More With Dementia Wander From Home in its entirety.
