Dementia and Alzheimer’s experts offer suggestions to keep those affected safe in winter

This past week, a woman suffering with dementia walked away from her home and was found dead, apparently a victim of exposure to the cold weather.

“It’s very sad but it happens more often than you think,” said Dr. Stacey Ruff of Rochester and a physician at Beaumont Royal Oak’s Geriatric Evaluation Center.

Not all end tragically but every year there are approximately 125,000 searches launched for missing dementia and Alzheimer’s patients, according to Project Far from Home, an Alzheimer’s education organization.

“Sometimes there is a scenario that plays out in the brain of people with dementia and they feel an urgent need to leave their home. We don’t really know what causes it,” Ruff said.

But their movements suggest that they are following a familiar scenario, something they remember doing and need to do again. One of Ruff’s patients, for example, woke up in the middle of the night to go to work. He got dressed. He grabbed his wallet and made breakfast. Fortunately his family woke up in time to find him sitting at the kitchen table.

It was 2 a.m.

“Dementia patients tend not to sleep well,” Ruff said. “Their sleep patterns are different than a person with a healthy brain. There are psychological changes that happen and the normal patterns of sleep are disrupted.”

Among the local tragedies related to dementia recently was the death of a 65-year-old woman from Shelby Township, Jan. 4.

RELATED: Shelby woman dies of exposure to cold

At around 6:20 a.m., Shelby Township Police were informed a woman who suffered from dementia had walked away from her home sometime during the night. She was wearing street clothes and, while it’s unclear how long she was outside, her husband reported to police he last saw her around 9 p.m. the night before. After an extensive search by township police, the woman was found dead, about two miles from her home on the Macomb Orchard Trail, at approximately 7 a.m.

Temperatures overnight were in the single digits, with the wind chill calculated below zero degrees.

“Any one of us looking to go outside on a day like that might say it’s too cold for me to venture out but with dementia patients normal judgement is impaired,” Ruff said. “The connection (warning to stay inside) is not being made between the body and the brain.”

In some cases it is the loss of memory that leads people astray.

“I had a family member who went missing this past fall,” said Carol Thompson, executive director and owner of Synergy Home Care in Chesterfield Township, which specializes in nonmedical homecare for people with dementia and Alzheimer’s. He was undiagnosed but Thompson knew he was suffering having seen him at a family funeral shortly before he disappeared.

“He just had that Alzheimer’s look,” she said. “He was sitting at a table in the funeral home and you could tell he didn’t know why he was there.”

Shortly after that the 87-year-old father failed to show up for a family visit that he makes every week at the same time. Neighbors told police that they saw his garage door open at 5:30 a.m. As it turns out, he went for a drive.

He was found by police the following day, in Indiana.

“It breaks my heart when I hear about things like this,” said Thompson. “I work with this population all the time and I know the struggles that families have with it. They think their mother is fine, she’s sleeping and then she’s gone.”

Tips to keep people safe

Caring for someone with dementia or Alzheimer’s is very difficult but there is a lot that families and friends can do to keep their loved ones safe. “We do care assessments all the time where we go into the home and point out ways to improve the situation,” said Thompson.

To help families here are 10 tips provided by Thompson’s Synergy Home Care team to lessen the danger that the person will exit the house including:

• Ensuring all basic needs are met.

• Checking with a doctor to determine whether medication may be causing the behavior.

• Giving the person something repetitive to do, such as rocking in a rocking chair, sweeping the floor, or folding clothes.

• Covering doors with “camouflage” posters that make them look like bookshelves or something other than a door. Doors can also be painted the same color as walls to make them “disappear.”

• Placing red “STOP” signs on a door (this may be effective at stopping someone from going out).

• Adding deadbolts to all doors leading to the outside, and keep the keys in a safe place where the patient can’t get to them. To reduce frustration, place locks up high or out of the line of sight. Never lock someone with Alzheimer’s or dementia in the home alone.

• Install motion and bed occupancy sensors; window and door sensors that set off alarms when opened; driveway sensors; and wireless home security systems.

• Install a fence around the house with a lockable gate.

• Invest in a GPS or similar wearable tracking device that makes it possible to monitor a person’s whereabouts and help you locate them quickly.

• If you know of a senior living alone, call on them periodically to see if they need anything, even if it’s just a few words or short trip to the grocery store.

-- Macomb Daily staff contributed to this story