The Canadian Institute for Health Information predicts a considerable growth of 68% of the Canadian senior population in the next 15 years. Many of these seniors suffer from chronic conditions like Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, or other forms of memory loss. The wandering episodes for this type of patients make their caregivers especially worried about the health and wellbeing of their loved ones. These seniors require specific attention as well as protective and preventive measures to avoid severe and life-threatening consequences
The statistics say that among 10 people with dementia, 6 of them will wander with 50% of them who are not found after a day, found themselves hurt or dead. It’s hard to monitor your patients or loved ones 24/7 even when you live with them. So, we came up with a list of preventive measures that could help you to decrease wandering episodes or at least to keep them under control.
1. Prepare the home of the wandering person
- Place locks out of the line of sight and install additional locks to make it more difficult to open the doors
- Camouflage doors that lead outside to decrease the temptation to go out
- Use geo-tracking small devices that could be attached to the wandering person and create a geofence to know when the leave the restricted area
- Put up “Stop” & “Do not enter” signs
- Label all doors with signs or symbols to explain the purpose of each room to make it easier for wandering people to find a room they need, like bathroom
- Install pressure-sensitive alarm mats at doors and bedsides
- Attach warning bells to doors, motion-sensing or monitoring devices that signal when a door is opened
- Use safety gates or brightly colored netting to prevent access to stairs or the outdoors
- Use child-proof covers on doorknobs, outlets, and cabinets with any hazardous contents
- Keep away the items triggering the person’s instinct to leave, such as coats, hats, pocketbooks, keys and wallets
- Do not leave the person alone in a car
- Restrict the fluids consumption few hours before a bedtime to avoid wandering for necessities
2. Reduce & prevent the risk of wandering
- Provide supervision
- Create a daily routine for the wandering person to make his/her day more structured
- Ensure all basic needs are met, including toileting, nutrition and hydration. When you leave the wandering person alone, make sure the water and food are accessible.
- Follow the schedule: feed them, organize activities and send them to bed in a particular time to reduce anxiety and stress by adding predictability
- Avoid crowded places that could create confusion and disorientation
- Find a companion for the senior with dementia who could help him when the family members and home care providers are not available.
3. Plan ahead
- Notify neighbours about chronic conditions of the wandering person, ask them to call you if the see the person wandering, lost or dressed inappropriately
- Make sure the wandering senior has an ID with him/her for easier identification and police search. The ID can be sewn or ironed on the senior shirt to make it more difficult for the wandering person to remove it.
- Dress your elderly loved one / patient in bright colors to make him/her easily noticeable from afar
- Create a list of places the person used to go and might wander to, such as past jobs, former homes, favorite park
- Keep with you the picture of the wandering senior and his/her medical records to help police in their search.
4. Be ready and take action when wandering occurs
- Check local landscapes, such as ponds, tree lines or fence lines — many individuals are found within brush or brier.
- Start your search from the surrounding area — individuals with dementia often wander within 1.5 miles.
- Check the places where the senior wandered in the past.
- React fast and be ready to call 911 to file a missing person’s report if the senior is not found after 15 minutes. Notify police that the person has dementia.
SenSights Care Tablet for Seniors
Our SenSights Care Tablet Solution makes monitoring seniors and patients with chronic conditions like Wandering, Memory, Falling, Wellness, Diabetes, COPD/CHF and other illnesses like COVID-19 effortless and convenient.
The use of audio, video and text communication via phone and popular social media platforms (WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, Youtube) would help seniors to be constantly connected to the 24/7 nurse help desk in the region. The circle of care: nurses, family, other healthcare providers and caregivers can set up customized geofences to make monitoring wandering people with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease easier. To track the location of the senior, caregivers could use his/her phone, smartwatch or other smart tracking devices. When the wandering occurs, the caregivers are immediately notified.
The Touchless Camera-Free Fall Detection sensor(s) connected to the SenSights Care app would notify caregivers if the fall occurred, so they can provide timely help to the seniors. Contactless Wellness Monitoring is also available for seniors via our Veyetals app embedded in SenSights Care Solution. So, forgetting to put on wearables for health monitoring is not an issue anymore. The main indicators that are tracked include Falls, Activity, Ambient Sensing, Geolocation, Steps, Heart Rate, Heart Rate Variability, Respiration Level, Temperature, Blood Pressure and Blood Glucose. The family members and doctors could also be added to the circle of care and receive medical alerts in case of health deterioration or emergency. The remote health monitoring is secure and Ontario verified.
What is the SenSights.AI Platform?
We are a North American-based startup that provides comprehensive capabilities for home care organizations to manage their senior care services using state-of-art AI and 5G technologies and allow for a greater independence. We are uniquely positioned as we are the only one with a combination of
- Wandering GPS tracking and geofence creation
- Device-less or contactless wellness monitoring
- Ambient or touchless fall detection
- Comprehensive Mobile, Tablet and Web Solution for Seniors, Caregivers and Agencies
- Complete Out of box Telehealth and TeleMedicine Platform with integration with over 15+ smart devices and several leading EMRs/EHRs like PointClick Care, Cerner and many more in pipeline
- Over 40+ Data Scientists, Engineers and Medical Advisors to help integrate and improve digital transformation journey of our client with services, products and platform focused on senior market
We provide the best in class health platform for patient engagement, remote monitoring and virtual care. Patients are guided on smartphones, tablets and computers from preparation through recovery with the help of reminders, education and activity tracking. Providers can receive alerts, monitor patients and access analytics to deliver better care. Health systems use SenSights Care to improve patient satisfaction while reducing hospital length of stay, readmissions, and costs.
We would like to work with you to help you grow your business with our unique business model of sharing revenue with healthcare providers.
Book a consultation today to see how can help digitally transform your healthcare organization at https://sensights.ai/contact-us/
Learn more about our SenSights Care Solution on http://sensightscare.com/