Controlling a person with Alzheimer’s can sometimes be very difficult. Caring for the patient alone requires quite a bit of sacrifice and a huge amount of free time. Not every person can afford to give round-the-clock care to a sick person, especially if it is a stage when the patient no longer understands what is going on around him.
It is extremely sad to see such a situation, but this is the moment when it is especially necessary to act. However, what if the Alzheimer’s patient goes through the “traveling” stage without anyone knowing? Finding out too late can have very serious consequences.
Round-the-clock care
This is the first thing that comes to mind when we think of a patient who starts slipping away from home and absolutely does not know how to get back there. However, the family is most often unable to afford to spend 24 hours a day by the side of a person in need – even if they would very much like to. The enormity of responsibilities and their own activities, often their own families and children who also need care, make it common to use a caregiver.
However, in the case of Alzheimer’s patients, the caregiver should be around the clock. After all, it is not enough for her to make a short visit during the day – we need someone who can control our loved one at all times. Such solutions, unfortunately, are very expensive, however, and the affected family is often unable to cover the cost of round-the-clock care, and few will willingly decide to place their loved one in a center.
Phone app
A phone with an app that would allow a loved one to be monitored could perhaps pass the test if the sick person could always have the phone with them. In people whose disease is not yet so far advanced and who are still able to get around on their own, albeit with difficulties – such an option will be useful, but during “night escapes”, which sick people with more seriously advanced disease like to organize for themselves, it will not pass the test. Then the exit from the house is not consciously planned by them and when “escaping” they do not take any things with them. Often they go out in what they walk around in every day, without a jacket, without shoes, without keys….
Locator
The very idea of tracking down a sick person using location – is a hit. It is worth taking advantage of the technological solutions to which we have access. Buying a locator, which can be attached to some part of the sick person’s clothing – for example, to the collar of his shirt or in the pocket of his pants, is a good idea to always know where our loved one is. This will avoid the situation when the sick person leaves the house, and we look for hours. Of course, the sick person will still need our care – the locator does not exclude this, but thanks to it we will always have the sick person under control if he decides to go somewhere, taking advantage of a moment of our inattention.
Such antics happen relatively often during illness. The locator will work equally well for people in the lighter stage of Alzheimer’s disease – after all, instead of a possible paid application for the phone, we can use a purchased GPS or Bluetooth locator. After all, it is often the case that Alzheimer’s patients are still working, sometimes continuing to study and climb the career ladder. This is not just a disease of the elderly – after all, it can also get people in middle age. Since sometimes the disease doesn’t progress very quickly and the patient still wants to try to cope on his own – such a locator will be a great idea, which will allow us to find our loved one in his moment of particular weakness.