Assembling a quality staff with a high tolerance for stress, an ability to quickly learn, a willingness to take risks, and a positive attitude is important. It is also necessary to commit to ongoing education and training for staff. Nasr, Samer, Judith Tuck, and Dan Osterweil. One of the most common problems encountered with patients with dementia is wandering. Wandering has been estimated to occur in up to 39 percent of cognitively impaired nursing facility residents and 70 percent of community-dwelling residents who are cognitively impaired.
Federal regulations provide general guidelines for evaluating wandering.
These regulations also require a behavioral treatment program which optimally should be used instead of physical restraints or psychotropic medication in the management of behavioral disorders, including wandering. There have been few scientific articles published on the evaluation of wandering and no studies have evaluated the usefulness of behavioral interventions. This article is an attempt to offer providers a consensus approach to evaluation and interventions that could aid with residents who wander. The panel was composed of 10 members assembled because of their experience in the management of cognitively impaired elderly patients. A search was done of the medical literature, and a bibliography and pertinent articles were distributed to each panelist.