My husband, who is 57, has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's for 3+ years, and he is very likely to head out our door and start walking in any direction. My neighbors are wonderful in calling me if they see him out alone, but they are not around all the time. I decided to get the Chaperone service that comes with Verizon Wireless cell phones. It has been a great help. I tell my husband that the cell phone he carries is for safety so he can call us if he needs something (I actually doubt he has the capacity to make a call), and I haven't told him about the GPS tracking capability. However, if I can't find him, I can locate him either by using my desktop computer or my cell phone. I think it also has a feature that is supposed to alert the "Parent" phone if the "child" phone goes more than a certain distance from a set location. If you don't need or want a fairly normal cell phone basic service, it will feel pricey to purchase the phones and coverage, but the Chaperone feature is just an additional $10 per month.

that is a neat service. Sorry I didn't know about it for my dad. Maybe you can post this on the caregivers forum. there are a number of wanders out there.

My mom got out of their fence. She was a wanderer. ALways looking for her parents. But she got lost for 24 hrs before anyone found her. The poor thing. My dad bought locks for the fence/gate. A lock that had to be screwed a certain way. Their attention span is no longer there so my mom would give up. Couldn't unlock the lock. Just some suggestions for people with wanderers.