Bremen. A great risk of dementia patients is to get lost and not to find the way home. If this happens in winter or in rural areas, it can be fatal to the disoriented person. In such cases, a retirement home in Duisburg alerts a volunteer season of human-dog teams.
Waiting excited, everyone wants to participate. More than 30 seniors have gathered in the hall of the Casa Mia retirement home in Duisburg. It is a training day: the detection dogs of dog trainers Andreas Kühm come into the house. In teams from one animal and a dog handler, they practice finding people – people who have been lost.
Missed people quickly tracked down
“People with dementia in particular often feel a strong urge to walk and then do not find it back,” explains Andreas Kühm his commitment in the retirement home. “Even if dementia sufferers only get lost in the house, it can take tens of hours to find them again. Sometimes people stay gone longer, sometimes even overnight. This can end fatally, especially if you are out of defenseless in the cold winter. ”
Regular training for emergencies
In view of this, Kühm developed his idea to cooperate with the retirement home. Because his mantrailers, i.e. search dogs that sniff people, can help in such dangerous situations. “For the dogs, sniffing traces is like a game – and it is impressively quick,” explains Kühm. A test proved it: a missing person was replenished, a senior hidden in the house, accompanied by nursing staff. “It took a minute and a half and the dog had found him,” reports Kühm.
So that everyone knows what to do in an emergency, has been trained regularly in the Casa Mia retirement home since then. For example, the dog is presented with a human smell using worn clothing. How exactly this comes about and how the dogs differentiate it has not yet been scientifically clarified. It is likely that he comes from bacteria on skin scales that constantly lose people. The dogs make up this individual fragrance pattern, follow him and thus show the dog handler the way to the associated person.
How well this works depends, among other things, on the weather. “The best thing is windless and moist at around 20 degrees,” explains Kühm. Because the calmer and wet, the less far the skin scales are swirled. In addition, the skin bacteria need a certain warmth to work. So the search teams have to start quickly so that the trail does not literally get cold.
Search games with a cuddly factor
Currently 16 dogs and their dog handlers belong to Kühm's dementia relay. Everyone has been there for years and have proven themselves. And not only as a sniffer dogs, because the four -legged friends are also very popular as visitors: If you are trained once a month on site in the 'Casa Mia' and the surrounding park, many elderly residents are always ready. Everyone wants to be a hidden person, but only a few can actively take part in the exercises. “Therefore, we set up a cuddly group in parallel,” says Kühm. If you are not allowed to hide as a test person, you can alternatively deal with the waiting dogs. This is how everyone benefits: the dogs love the attention and the seniors get employment – and in an emergency quick help.