Wandering behaviour in community-residing persons with dementia

Abstract

Objectives To examine wandering behaviour in elderly demented persons in the community setting with respect to dementia characteristics and other factors that might influence wandering behaviour; to generate a statistical model to assess the relative importance of these various factors in predicting wandering behaviour. Design Cross‐sectional, case‐control investigation. Setting University‐affiliated outpatient neuropsychiatric assessment center. Participants Six hundred and thirty‐eight consecutive community‐residing new patients with dementia referred for evaluation. Measurements Comprehensive neuropsychiatric evaluation, including rating with Mini‐Mental State Examination; General Medical Health Rating; Comell Scale of Depression in Dementia and caregiver interview. Results Wandering behaviour occurred in 17.4% of participants. It was significantly more prevalent in patients with Alzheimer Dementia (AD), patients with dementia of longer duration, and patients with more severe dementia. Wandering behaviour was associated with moderate to severe depression, delusions, hallucinations, and sleep disorder. Other significant associations of wandering behaviour included use of neuroleptic medication and male gender. After statistical adjustment for other variables, duration of dementia, severity of dementia and presence of sleep disorder retained significant statistical association with wandering behaviour. Conclusions Wandering behaviour among community‐residing elderly dementia patients is associated with a number of factors, some of which may be subject to modification. It is possible that management of coexistent psychopathology, particularly of sleep disorder, and of the underlying disease process of AD would help to ameliorate this problematic behavioural disorder. Further investigation is warranted into the relationship between neuroleptic medication and wandering behaviour and into possible alternative measures to control agitation in elderly dementia patients. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Sleepwalking in Parkinson’s disease: a questionnaire-based survey

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A systematic literature review of the effectiveness of non-pharmacological interventions to prevent wandering in dementia and evaluation of the ethical implications and acceptability of their use

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