Wandering Resident advice

Specialties Geriatric

Published

In our 40 bed facility, we don't have a separate Alzheimers wing. We have a lady with alzheimers who has been 'wandering' at nite.

There are only two of us at noc and sometimes it's hard to keep track of her if we're busy with other residents, and she'll go into other residents rooms before we can catch her.

When she first gets up, we offer her a snack and a drink - she's fully ambulatory and doesn't seem to be having any discomfort - we turn on the TV and give her magazines. I'm going to take in assorted 'laundry' for her to fold (a suggestion I was given to keep her busy).

If she just walked in the halls, I wouldn't mind, but she'll follow us into rooms, or go into other residents rooms and 'mess' with things.

I've reported this to the DON, but am not getting much help - they're going to try to get her a PRN order for Tylenol.

What do you guys do with residents like this?

Isn't it sad that this lady does not have the benefit of a secure unit populated with residents just like her and staffed with people attuned to their needs? I bet the other higher functioning folks are having a fit when she goes into their rooms and "gets into" their stuff.In my experience the higher functioning have little tolerance for the lower-they can be mean as snakes.(Maybe because they KNOW that they could end up like that in a second) No dignity for her either-when the others snap and snipe at her.I'm sure this behavior is not only happening on your shift.

Yes, you are right - in my opinion, she should be in an Alzheimers unit but that's not going to happen until something significant happens and the other residents or their families start to complain a lot. It seems to be all about the money with these folks.

We do the best that we can, but on our shift there are only two of us for between 37 and 40 patients - and we have two other residents that wander at noc, but at least the other two don't go into the other resident's rooms. Some nites it's a real zoo when all three are up, going in different directions.

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Specializes in LTC, home health, critical care, pulmonary nursing.
Hi:nurse: ,

I'm a nursing student but I'm a CNA at a large facility. I'm very familiar with the wanders. We have sensor bells attached to all the resident door frames , letting us know if we have a wander. The sensor bells have 2 chimes, the normal door bell when staff is entering/leaving, then panic bell is set off with a resident's bracelet, it's a constant ring letting the staff know you have a wander in a room. It's kinda like the door chimes you'll hear at a store in a shopping mall. As far as keeping her busy, your doing pretty much the same thing I'm doing. Maybe your facility will get the door senors?! Good Luck.

How the heck do you keep the bracelets on their wrists? I find them all over the place. Sometimes on other residents!

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Specializes in LTC,Hospice/palliative care,acute care.
How the heck do you keep the bracelets on their wrists? I find them all over the place. Sometimes on other residents!
We have to physically check for the bracelets daily-we have had more then a few that were very crafty and able to remove them.We would often place them on the ankle (if edema is not a problem) I also had a gal that constantly removed them no matter where we put them-but she never put her purse down...We care planned it and hid one in her purse.That worked fine until her dementia progressed to the point where she forgot about the purse.By then we could go back to placing them on the ankle.We have also had residents that we have had to secure them to the inside of their garments.That's great unless they get into frequently changing their clothes.You just have to be creative..We also have placed stickers on the bracelets to make them resemble wrist watches or jewelry..Some companies sell extra thick bracelets that prevent them from being cut off with a knife or stretched ....
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Specializes in Med/Surg, ICU, educator.

maybe get the family of this pt involved, since this facility doesn't have an alz unit, perhaps another facility in the area does. This may have to be done for pt safety. Also, if the facility you work at thought that they may lose pts for this reason, perhaps they would create an alz unit.

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maybe get the family of this pt involved, since this facility doesn't have an alz unit, perhaps another facility in the area does. This may have to be done for pt safety. Also, if the facility you work at thought that they may lose pts for this reason, perhaps they would create an alz unit.

It's going to take some major event to get the management at this facility to do anything. I become more disgusted by the day.

The DON is young and she isn't very responsive to issues or problems - her typical answer is 'deal with it'. I had thought that maybe she was better with the other shifts, but from what I'm hearing, she isn't.

She seems to be lacking in the concept of professionalism - I've heard two stories in the last week that make me cringe - one where she was running thru the facility having a 'water fight' with one of the CNA'S, and the other, where she was having a 'farting' contest with the dining room staff.

I like to joke and have fun with the residents, but maybe I'm too old, but this sort of stuff seems to cross the line, somehow.

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