Hello Jeff,

I am John and my mother has dimentia.

She is living at my sister’s house and my sister called me telling me my mother is getting up at night with illusions of living in another house with some other people and she needs to find them.

My mother lives with my father in my sister’s house and he’s fine. The problem is when he goes to sleep he doesn’t hear my mother getting up and traveling. She goes upstairs to my sisters bedroom and tells my sister stories. My sister takes her back to her room where my father is sleeping and tells her to go back to sleep. After my sister leaves my mother goes out the door and out into the night.

So far she has just gone next door or up the stairs to the front door where my sister catches her and talks her into going back to bed. My sister is afraid this will get worse.

What I’m looking for is some type of a bracelet my mom could wear that would sound an alarm upstairs to my sister’s room to let her know that my mother has gone on the move. Are there products such as this available?

John

REPLY:

Hi John,

This is a growing problem for senior citizens in our society.

Dimentia is the beginning of a huge caregiver problem as you are becoming quite aware. You are not alone, this problem causes great heartache for all caregivers.

My heart goes out to you and your sister.

What’s generally used in this situation is a wander alert not a medical alert system. The alert basically sounds a loud noise when the wanderer passes through an electronic perimeter set by you.

There are also systems that sound an alert anytime the senior citizen with dimentia gets out of bed.

Hope this helps,

Jeff