The management of wandering behaviour in the confused older person raises a dilemma concerning the contravention of basic human rights and the maintenance of individual safety, balancing an acceptable risk while ensuring the duty to care. In general, where restraint is used, a less restrictive method is to be preferred over one which is more so. Observations on a psychogeriatric ward of nine habitual wanderers compared the rate of successful exit door contact (touching, opening or exiting) over a two‐week period under three experimental conditions. These included the use of a full‐length mirror, placed in front of the door, the mirror reversed, and neither. A reduction in successful exit door rates from 76.2% to 35.7% ( p <0.02) was noted with the mirror in use, compared with no mirror. The possible mechanism for the putative effect is discussed.
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Mayer et al. (1991) studied this question.