If you have ever searched high and low through your home, or through your loved one’s home if they don’t live with you, for something they were looking for, you know how much time this takes.
And it’s especially hard when the things going missing are the important ones. Driver’s licenses. ID cards. Wallets. Glasses. Even hearing aids.
If your loved one with dementia has a habit of misplacing or hiding things, there are some recommendations to try.
1. Discover Their Favorite Hiding Spots
Start by finding their common hiding areas, or the common places where they misplace things.
The next time you search the house and find what they were looking for, take note of where it was. People with dementia often have favorite hiding places. So check those places often, just to see what you find there.
If you’re wondering why your loved one hides things in the first place, I go into that in 5 more strange dementia behaviors and why they happen.
2. Keep Duplicates: Real or Fake
Another recommendation is to have duplicates of important items. These can be true duplicates or fake duplicates.
Real duplicates
If your loved one has a habit of misplacing their glasses, keep a backup pair on hand. Then if you can’t find where they put the first pair, they have a pair they can use.
Fake duplicates
The duplicate doesn’t have to be the real thing.
- A backup wallet or credit card. Maybe a credit card that’s been discontinued or is no longer in service. If they’re going around looking for their wallet or credit card, and you like to keep the real one in a safe place, they can have a backup wallet that doesn’t hold any cards that would be dangerous to lose.
- A set of keys that doesn’t work. If your loved one likes to have the house keys or car keys in their hand, keep a set with the same key chain and the same look as the real set, that doesn’t actually work for the car or the home.
How far you go with this really depends on the severity of your loved one’s dementia and your specific safety concerns.
3. Keep Important Items Safely Out of Reach
Some things would be hard to replace: important paperwork, Social Security cards, even checkbooks.
Have a safe place for them where you can store them out of sight and out of reach of your loved one with dementia. Maybe even locked up.
In other words, keep the important items safe and sound in your own hiding place.
4. Don’t Forget to Check the Trash
One last-minute tip: check the trash can before you take out the trash.
A lot of people with dementia forget what certain items are for. They may put something important in the trash can, forgetting that it’s a trash can.
Understand Every Situation Is Unique
Not all of these recommendations will help everybody with dementia. It really depends on your specific situation and the severity of your loved one’s dementia.
But if you’ve spent a lot of time yourself trying to find the things your loved one has hidden or misplaced, I hope some of these help.
Searching for the same glasses and keys again and again wears you down, even when each search is small. Inside the Care Collective, we talk through everyday problems like this one: what to try, what to do when it doesn’t work, and how to take care of yourself while you keep caring for your loved one. You can learn more here.
