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

[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.