Should patients with dementia who wander be electronically tagged? No

The biggest challenge in dementia care is to keep the person with dementia as our primary focus of attention.1 Divining someone’s wishes and needs can be challenging in the face of deficits in memory and language often encountered in dementia. Skill, subtlety, and appropriate training are required to ensure that the needs and wishes of carers and service providers do not impinge inappropriately on those of the person with dementia.

This task is compounded by what is known as the malignant social psychology of dementia,2 which is a widespread phenomenon. First described more than 20 years ago, these barriers to the appreciation of personhood among people with dementia include objectification, infantilisation, disempowerment, labelling, imposition, and stigmatisation. These tend to occur without malice or forethought but nonetheless are …