Showing posts with label dementia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dementia. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 27, 2018

A Voice in the Night


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Middle of the night. I got awaken from my sleep by a woman's voice repeatedly calling (in hebrew): 'where are you' , 'where are you'.
It was creepy. I had no idea where exactly the voice came from: the street? the garden?the adjacent parking lot? it sounded like a voice coming from an alien world. 

After a few minutes, it occured to me that, perhaps, the voice belonged to a woman with dementia or alzheimer who had escaped, unnoticed from the nearby assisted-living facility (which has also a memory care wing), and was looking for her personal carer. I decided to call the police in our area  and ask them to urgently deal with the matter.

The police were quick. I looked out of the window and was relieved to see the blue flashing light of their car .   After about 5 minutes the nagging voice stopped, and I went back to bed.

The next day I made enquiries. She was found sitting on the garden stone edge, behind a car. It appeared I was only partially right. The woman had indeed dementia, but she wasn't a resident of the assisted living facility.  The police kept her for a while at the station until  family phoned to report her missing. The incident was brought to the attention of the Social Services.

Well, I was glad that it all ended  with no physical harm done to the poor woman. 

*- web picture - logo of dementia campaign