Advice for door locks

Lorischrod

We are new to all of this. My MIL has moved in with my husband and I and our two kids 11 and 9. It's been a learning experience to be sure. After reading some posts she is in good shape so far. Unfortunately she loves to putz late at night. She will spend hours picking small things off the floor. The last few nights we have noticed her opening our front doors. We thought the screen would deter her, but at 2am our camera picked her up looking out the door a few times. Our fear is she will decide to head out for a walk. Does anyone have a prevention for this? Our doors are over 100 years old so we have been avoiding doing anything permanent, but I think that time has come to an end.

Thank you so much everyone!! Reading these posts doesn't make me feel so alone. We love our little putsky, but it's a challenge.

Thank you!!

terei

Many times, a hook and eye up high will deter a PWD.  Most of them do not look up to see what is keeping the door shut. 

It may not work, but is is a simple, quick fix to try.  If it does not work, you can go on to something more complicated.  

NuttyProfessor

So sorry to hear that....but yes, you really do have to do something to prevent wandering outside.  Come winter, that can be deadly.  My sister told me that her husband's uncle wandered out in a Minnesota winter and was found on his doorstep the next morning.

There are door sensors that you can buy that will trigger an alarm.  It's just two pieces that will send an alert by bluetooth if the pieces are separated (happens when the door opens).  The bluetooth triggers an audible alarm on a plug in device that you can put in your room, to wake you up.  The sensors stick on so no problem with an old door.

MN Chickadee

You are wise to ask. In my area there is often a story of a PWD wandering away from home and the local news asking for help locating them. A couple people per year in a not very big city. It rarely ends well. This risk needs to be taken seriously. Sometimes a basic lock like a chain lock or hook in an unusual place is enough. Up high or down low.  Amazon sells door stop style alarms, which make a sound when the door opens into it so at least you would be alerted she was attempting to leave. There are a variety of styles of alarms you can easily install on doors or mats you can put near the bed to alert you she is up.  You might also consult her dementia specialist about a sleep medication. When the PWD is up at night it becomes incredibly draining on the caregivers after a short time. Usually the door lock or alarm is a stop gap. A temporary fix for safety while you figure out supervision at night, whether that is taking turns sleeping, hiring some help, moving the person to memory care etc. You may need to worry about other safety issues in the middle of the night especially around the kitchen. Your kids need a good night sleep and finding the right fix for this problem should be a priority for their sake as well. A medication so the PWD sleeps most of the night can prolong the manageable home-care phase so that everyone is safe and gets enough sleep. Each PWD reacts differently to meds. It can take some time to find the right one. In our case it was Remeron. It made my mother sleep through the night 90% of the time which really helped prolong the time we could keep her at home. Turns out sleeping through her playing the piano at 2 am was unsustainable. I'm guessing you aren't sleeping great if you have one ear open to hear if she is roaming around. This will catch up with you so finding a solution is wise for your own health and the ability to be a good parent to your kids as well.

May flowers

I put a slide bolt at the very top of the door. He never saw it so it worked well. We had door chime/alarms, but by the time we got to him he was already out and down the steps in the middle of the night, so it was a fall risk as well. So we opted for the slide bolts, and they look kind of neat on the old door.

harshedbuzz

A friend found it worked best to have a motion detection mat on the floor near mom's bed which alerted her phone. This allowed her to redirect mom back to bed before she was fully awake. She and her nightowl son (who was between graduation and grad school) split the night with her heading to bed early and him handing the phone off around 2am. 

They also had sliding bolts on the doors to the outside, garage and basement. In addition to the locks, one low-tech approach that may help is using a black area rug/mat in front of the door. Often a PWD will visually interpret that as a hole and avoid it. 

HB

May flowers

Those pressure mat alarms are great. We didn’t put it by my FIL’s bed because we didn’t want to be alerted every time he got up to go to the bathroom, but we put it in the hall to let us know if he was going past the bathroom and down the hall (and where ever else). It connected wirelessly to a unit next to the bed. 

I now have the bed pressure alarm made by the same company that chimes when he tries to get out of bed, now that he is at risk of falling.