Doors and Drawers left open

CindyByNature

First, I want to say how grateful I am to everyone who shares here. It has been amazing to feel not-alone in this.

My mother, diagnosed with Alzheimers and Vascular Dementia, leaves all the doors and drawers open now. Does anyone notice that same behavior? She has also has many of the behaviors already mentioned in the forum (toileting issues, housekeeping decline, spatial reasoning challenges, inability to dress self, etc.). Was curious if the drawers and doors is a common behavior.

M1

Welcome to the forum. No personal experience with this-but I would worry more about the doors than the drawers, for fairly obvious reasons. Automatic door shutters come to mind--I had to put one on my garage entrance when my kids were little because they were constantly going in and out. it was fairly easy to install, and you can put them on indoor doors as well if that's an issue. but eventual elopement would be my biggest concern. A lot of folks say that putting a lock of some sort above eye level is useful because a lot of PWD don't look up, for unknown reasons.

From what you're describing, I hope she's not living by herself?

gretchenep

Yes, my dad does this. One of the early signs he was having issues was that he kept leaving his car door open so the battery would die. He doesn’t drive anymore, but he still leaves car doors open and walks away. Also the refrigerator door and cabinet doors. He sometimes does it with the doors to the house but my sister lives with him so she closes them so it’s not a safety concern yet.