Understanding Elopement And Wandering

Elopement and wandering affect millions of elderly people each year. This is due, in no small part, to the fact that many nursing homes and residential centers for the elderly do not have adequate staff to ensure that the elderly who live there do not leave. Elopement and wandering means that many elderly people can leave a place and wander off without anyone noticing. It doesn’t matter if they are dressed for the climate or not, they will usually just walk off. The dangers that are posed to seniors who suffer from elopement and wandering are that they can disappear and get hurt and no one would know it. And like children, seniors who suffer from elopement and wandering are at risk for being sexually molested or abducted.

Differences Between Elopement And Wandering

Elopement is defined as the elderly person’s ability to leave their nursing home or residential care facility without being observed. It may be that there is someone on guard at the desk by the front door but there are back doors where people can leave the building undetected. Elopement is dangerous because the senior who leaves during the can go undetected for hours before anyone notices they are gone. In climates where the weather is in climate, this means the senior could be exposed to frost bite, wind burn and other weather-related injuries.

How To Avoid Elopement and Wandering

If you have a parent or elderly loved one who is prone to elopement or wandering, there are some basic considerations that you should take:

Consider having an alert system attached to the door of their room.
Make sure that someone routinely checks their room at night to ensure they are there.
See if their nursing home has a life alert system that can monitor their whereabouts.
Take into consideration the staff to patient ratio. Obviously a staff of three or four cannot adequately maintain a home of 100 or more seniors.
If you are reviewing nursing home options, don’t be afraid to ask a potential nursing home if they have had any incidents of elopement or wandering in the past few months. If they have, it is a warning sign to avoid such a home.
Most nursing homes are licensed by the state, which means you can check their records with the state.

Seniors who suffer from elopement and wandering should not be treated like prisoners. However, they should be provided with the safety and security that they require to ensure that the do not leave their designated building without someone knowing and to ensure that they do not wander into the rooms of other residents during the night without warning. If you have a loved one or parent in a nursing home, this care should be provided routinely as a part of the costs for them to reside there.

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