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Assessing wandering risk among individuals with Alzheimer's disease and dementia: a pilot study
Author(s) -
BarnardBrak Lucy,
Richman David M.,
Owen Donna C.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
psychogeriatrics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.647
H-Index - 32
eISSN - 1479-8301
pISSN - 1346-3500
DOI - 10.1111/psyg.12336
Subject(s) - dementia , medicine , disease , distress , receiver operating characteristic , alzheimer's disease , psychology , clinical psychology
Background We examined a screening instrument to assess risk for wandering among individuals with Alzheimer's disease and dementia according to caregiver informants. Methods Pilot data were collected on the Risk of Wandering (RoW) screening instrument by 48 responses from an online survey using the Alzheimer's Association Trial Match system. Results Results indicated acceptable evidence of the internal consistency of scores for the data obtained, α = 0.81. Receiver operating characteristic curve results indicated acceptable evidence of the screening instrument scores’ ability to discriminate between individuals who eloped and those who did not wander off, AUC = 0.72, P = 0.003. Conclusions A cut‐off score for future use is suggested along with directions for future research. The development of a screening instrument would appear to be preferable to restricting the movement of these individuals or unnecessarily invading their privacy through monitoring devices while simultaneously balancing the desire to prevent distress, serious injury, or death.