Lock bedroom doors in MC?

I would not recommend locking the doors. What if there is an emergency?

My wife's memory care does not have locks on the bedroom doors.

When she tells me she wants to go home, I tell her the people at memory care are there to help her to get better. When she gets better then she can go home. I hate lying because I know she is not going to get better.

The lock situation is going to vary depending on how the facility is licensed by your state. In my state, AL and MC are both licensed as "personal care" which means residents have the right to lock their apartment/suite. Dad's facility had weighted-to-close doors with automatic locks. They opened normally (no latch/lock to undo) from the inside but needed a key to enter from the hall. Staff all carried a master key, and residents typically had their key on a ring or lanyard.

This did reduce the hunting and gathering that typically occurs in any MCF, but it didn't eliminate it entirely as many, like dad, propped their doors open.

HB

In my experience, wandering is common in memory care. My mother-in-law was in a memory care where she good excellent care, good food, appropriate activities. The staff was great, but wandering and ‘shopping’ occurred. Sometimes another resident might have moved an object to another room. Sometimes the resident had moved the object to their room. The memory care wing outside doors were locked, but individual rooms could not be locked.

Funny story — One male resident was a frequent wanderer. When he got tired, he’d lie down on the nearest bed. One evening as the aide was guiding MIL back to her room, they found the wanderer lying on her bed. Aide told MIL not to be upset as she’d get wanderer back to his room. MIL (age 94) told the aide that if he had money he could stay.

Where my dh lived some residents had sort of baby gates on their doorways (but much higher), so staff could bring the resident in and out and the door could be left open for monitoring. I would imagine that would primarily be for residents that aren't independently mobile but their family does not want anyone wandering in.

It never bothered me much when people wandered in to my dh's room. His clothing disappearing didn't bother me much, nor the appearance of other clothing, but it did bother my when his size 7 shoes disappeared and he had on 13s. I did make a ruckus about that.

At my mother's Memory Care home they used cloth door banners (STOP in big red letters) to give a resident who was distressed by another residents wandering in and out of others rooms more of a feeling of privacy in her room. You can buy them on Amazon. Having said that it is definitely a big mindset shift for the new residents of a Memory Care Center. My mother was never a social person. So we expected (and she did at first) to stay in her room watching the TV. And she did for a month or so. However, at my mother's place they work very hard on getting all the residents to spend their day together in the Common Areas. They have an activity room there and a big TV area. I find that my mothers best days are spent mostly out of her room and with the others.