Wanderers with Cognitive Impairment in Department of Veterans Affairs Nursing Home Care Units

Abstract

These results support previous clinical understanding of wanderers to be those who are more likely to exhibit more-severe cognitive impairment. Based on a statistical model with variables generated from prior research findings, classification as a wanderer was found to be associated with other disruptive activity such as socially inappropriate behavior and resisting care. Two understudied populations of wanderers were documented: wheelchair wanderers and those with comorbid dementia and psychiatric diagnoses. Future longitudinal studies should examine predictors of wandering behavior, and further research should explore the understudied subpopulations of wheelchair and dual-diagnosis wanderers who emerged in this study.

Getting lost in the community: a phone survey on the community‐dwelling demented people in Hong Kong

“…This is consistent with previous studies (e.g. McShane et al, 1998;Schonfeld et al, 2007), showing that level of cognitive impairment as measured by the mini-mental state examination (MMSE) was negatively associated with the risk of getting lost. The increased risk associated with late stage of dementia (GDS stage 7) did not reach statistical significance, probably because of small sample size.…”

Longitudinal investigation of wandering behavior in department of veterans affairs nursing home care units

“…Requiring assistance with locomotion and a greater number of medical comorbidities were associated with a decreased chance of changing from non-wandering to wandering status. These results are consistent with our previous cross-sectional work using this VA MDS data base which found that wanderers were more likely to exhibit severe (vs. moderate) cognitive impairment, socially inappropriate behavior, resistance to care, independence in locomotion or ambulation, and dependence in activities of daily living related to basic hygiene (Schonfeld et al, 2007a). It appears that wandering status is more likely to change from wandering to non-wandering rather than the reverse, and that wandering is a temporary phase for approximately half of those residents who are admitted as wanderers.…”

Non-cognitive symptoms and behavioral patterns in elderly residents with dementia in nursing homes: a literature survey

“…1). Die Häufigkeit von nicht-kognitiven Symptomen bei Demenzkranken wird je nach Form und Ausmaß der Symptome zwischen 10,5% und 87% angegeben [11,20,25,26,28,29,31,35].…”

“…Depressive Verstimmungen (52%) und apathische Symptome (41%) traten neben erhöhter Erregbarkeit (38%) am häufigsten auf. Schonfeld et al [28] …”