Living near a nursing home, I have often come across poor lost souls in dressing gowns either thumbing a lift or walking away to non-existent homes or families. I have had to return one or two elderly patients who managed to dodge the staff and make their way out. So when I stumbled across this story I had to pass it on.
Fed up with trying to chase after its elderly residents who forgot where they were and took off (a common enough occurrence as anyone with Alzheimer suffering relatives knows), Benrath Senior Centre in Düsseldorf came up with a novel idea to stop them running away. The patients mostly suffer from short-term memory problems but longer term memory is usually fairly good. Someone came up with the idea of placing a fake Bus Stop/Shelter outside the entrance to the nursing home, complete with everything except the buses to stop there. The patients seem to latch on to the familiar surroundings and remember that the bus can take them home. After a few minutes the staff (I assume watching the bus stop by video camera or something similar) then tell them that the bus won't be along until later and ask them if they would like to come in for a cup of tea while they're waiting for it. Ten minutes later they have usually forgotten where they were originally going or even that they were leaving.
The idea has proved so successful that it has now been adopted by several other nursing homes across Germany.
Again a simple but ingenious way of thinking your way around having to deal with a common problem.
Now if we could do something for Our Leaders who have lost their way..
Our leaders? They wouldn't be familiar with bus stops. Maybe a helipad..
Considering what I've heard about your leaders perhaps thy should wait for a bus in the street instead of a bus stop?
Come to think of it a new bus stop has gone up in front of my house and I seem to remember drinking a lot of tea lately. Funny thing is my town doesn't have any buses. I think I need to talk to my wife about this.
Good post, great idea too. But leaders? Really, there are no such types in Ireland, truly, there are no leaders in Irish political circles.
There atre con-men and scammers and bullshit artists, but leaders? Give me abreak!
To all,
I use the term "Leaders" very loosely, kind of an analogy to "Take me to your leaders" as the aliens would say. Fall guys in case of alien invasion, they'd be the ones to get slurped and ingested first by an amoebic being.
Kirk, have you woken up wearing any strange apparel around the waistline?
The above might be an idea to keep them returning to Leinster house, that expensive glass box to the front may remind them of an airport terminal enough maybe to keep them there, Anyone stolen any Ryanair or Aer Lingus signs lately that we could borrow? Maybe we could dress up a shop dummy in the livery of the Air Force and it would look enough like the Gumment Jet terminal?
Our Leaders
Who Art in Permanent Confusion…
On the actual bus-stop for Alzheimers patients, such a simple idea, so effective. Which is why it would never work over here.
@The Geek – I'd answer your strange apparel question but I have to remove a cat from my computer desk. It's trying to make off with my display…again.
@Sweary – The idea probably wouldn't work over here either simply because there are those who are not institutionalized (just "regular" folks in other words) who would probably mistake it for the real thing as well. And I'm sure they'd get quite upset when they found out they couldn't have any tea.
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Sweary — It wouldn't work here because the bus-shelter would be full of fat tracksuited knackers shagging each other and drinking Dutch Gold.