The number of elderly people moving into long-term care facilities is
expected to increase as the population of people 65 and older continues to rise
at a significantly high rate. Simultaneously, the number of people expected to
be diagnosed with dementia will also increase unless a cure for this devastating
disease is found. In the meantime, caregivers face many problems in providing
healthy and humane treatments. One such problem that is a major concern for
caregivers is controlling wandering behavior. This behavior often places
patients in life threatening situations, and the current methods used by many
facilities do not promote a high quality of life.
The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of various tape
patterns on the wandering behaviors of residents living in a special dementia
care unit in Heritage Hall Nursing Home, Blacksburg, Virginia. Similar studies
revealed that alternative methods using tape patterns could reduce exiting
attempts at a fire exit door or could possibly increase these attempts.
In order to address these inconsistencies, exiting attempts at a fire exit
door were recorded during one baseline and two similar test conditions. It was
found that exiting attempts was a serious problem in this unit as 40% of the
residents attempted to exit the faci I ity during the study. The use of tape patterns
reduced exiting attempts by 19.05% and 11.12%; however, this reduction was
not statistically significant. In conclusion, the use of these tape patterns
affected wandering behavior differently for each of the residents, suggesting that
a multi-method approach for controlling exiting behavior may prove to be more
successful when dealing with a heterogeneous sample and their multi-needs.
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