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The effectiveness of control strategies for dementia-driven wandering, preventing escape attempts: a case report

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 November 2012

Daniel Valle Padilla ,
María Teresa Daza González ,
Inmaculada Fernández Agis ,
Jenna Strizzi  and
Raquel Alarcón Rodríguez
Daniel Valle Padilla
Affiliation:
Centro de Evaluación y Rehabilitación Neuropsicológica (CERNEP), Universidad de Almería, Almería, Spain
María Teresa Daza González*
Affiliation:
Centro de Evaluación y Rehabilitación Neuropsicológica (CERNEP), Universidad de Almería, Almería, Spain Departamento de Neurociencia y Ciencias de la Salud, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de Almería, Almería, Spain
Inmaculada Fernández Agis
Affiliation:
Centro de Evaluación y Rehabilitación Neuropsicológica (CERNEP), Universidad de Almería, Almería, Spain Departamento de Neurociencia y Ciencias de la Salud, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de Almería, Almería, Spain
Jenna Strizzi
Affiliation:
Centro de Evaluación y Rehabilitación Neuropsicológica (CERNEP), Universidad de Almería, Almería, Spain
Raquel Alarcón Rodríguez
Affiliation:
Departamento de Neurociencia y Ciencias de la Salud, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de Almería, Almería, Spain
*
Correspondence should be addressed to: María Teresa Daza González, PhD, Departamento de Neurociencia y Ciencias de la Salud, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de Almería, 04120 Almería, Spain. Phone: +34-950214623; Fax: +34-950214383. Email: tdaza@ual.es.
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Abstract

One of the most complicated aspects of caring for patients with dementia is dementia-driven wandering due to its adverse ramifications. We report a case of an 80-year-old man who had been previously diagnosed with dementia (with a score of 6 on the Reisberg Global Deterioration Scale – GDS). The patient went to an Adult Day Care Center on a daily basis where he demonstrated wandering behavior with a high rate of escape attempts (the number of times the Center's glass exit door was approached). The objective of this study is to present effective non-pharmacological intervention strategies for dementia-driven wandering; assessed strategies included: environmental (subjective barriers), cognitive/behavioral (cognitive training with differential reinforcement), and combined (subjective barriers + cognitive/behavioral). The results showed that all of these three strategies significantly decreased the number of escape attempts.

Keywords

wanderingdementiasubjective barrierscognitive/behavioral intervention
Type
Case Report
Information
International Psychogeriatrics , Volume 25 , Issue 3 , March 2013 , pp. 500 - 504
Copyright
Copyright © International Psychogeriatric Association 2012

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