Alzheimer’s patients usually have severe short-term memory loss and, as a result, tend to forget where they are or what they were doing. However, since they retain their long-term memory, many oftentimes want to go “home”, as in the last place they remember living. Sadly, this causes a lot of problems for nursing homes because the home these people remember sometimes no longer exists or the person has no idea how to get there and they end up getting lost. Well, German nursing homes have come up with a novel solution to get them from leaving, erect fake bus stops in front of the center. Surprisingly, it works great!

Patients who want to leave walk out of the building and see the familiar bus stop. They attribute taking the bus to going home so they wait at the stop for the next bus to arrive but none of the buses stop since the stop if fake. Meanwhile the patients wait, lose track of what they were doing, and then center staff approach them and bring them back. It’s kind of funny but sad at the same time.

“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.”

Apparently the idea is so successful that nursing homes all over Germany are doing it. It is likely other countries will do it as well. We wonder how it’ll be used in the US though. Since people here tend to have their own cars as opposed to taking public transportation, how could this idea be implemented here? They could set up a fake taxi in hopes the person jumps in expecting to be taken home. Regardless of how funny it is, the fact is that it works. It’s good to know they were able to stop people from getting lost.

[Source]

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