Alzheimer's bus stop

[yrmencyn]

Headline: Fake bus stop keeps Alzheimer's patients from wandering off

Basically, a nursing home in Germany requested a fake bus stop outside their facility, so they wouldn't have to use police searchers to track down their wandering residents:

"They know the green and yellow bus sign and remember that waiting there means they will go home."

The result is that errant patients now wait for their trip home at the bus stop, before quickly forgetting why they were there in the first place.

"We will approach them and say that the bus is coming later and invite them in for a coffee," said Richard Neureither, Benrath's director. "Five minutes later they have completely forgotten they wanted to leave."

Honestly, it's a really smart, low-tech idea, but I also find it deeply sad.

Comments

maybe...

[register5.livejournal.com]

it might be sad that's it's so effective, but it's only as effective at keeping the patients there as the disease is at robbing them of the life they once lived. a lady who once lived across the street had a very severe case of it, especially after her husband died...she reverted back 50 years, thinking that her son was her husband and that he was cheating on her with his wife.

alzheimers is the one thing that's worse than plagiarism, because it doesn't steal the idea...it completely erases it...

oh yeah

[register5.livejournal.com]

i'm glad that they've found such a simple and effective solution though...perhaps we could try it here in the states

[pixidala.livejournal.com]

Alzheimer's in general is a really sad disease. One of the two elderly women that used to live next door to me suffered terribly with it, and let a stranger into her house one day thinking it was her husband. Thankfully, my mother saw this happen and went over and forced the man to leave. I came home from school that day with Lillian sipping tea in our living room, having completely forgotten the incident.

If this tactic helps to keep patients from getting hurt (or being taken advantage of), that's much better.

[osu-l-greenleaf.livejournal.com]

It is deeply sad because no one likes the thought of a disease that slowly takes away every memory you ever had. My great-grandmother had it and it made a mean person which upset my mom because she remembered her grandmother as being the sweetest woman ever. I don't think I am more afraid of me, my family, or friends being stricken of an illness nore than alzheimer's. Its so hard on everyone. I'm really glad this German nursing home has found a gentle way to redirect their patients without causing them to become upset or confused.