You did not sleep last night. You went down at 2am and the front door was unlocked. Nothing happened this time. But the next time you might not wake up.

If you are caring for someone with dementia who has started to wander, you are not the only family quietly buying door chimes and pretending to read while your ears track every sound. According to the Alzheimer's Society, around six in ten people living with dementia will walk away from a place they know at some point. Most come back without incident. A few do not.

There are wearable devices that help with this. Two different categories, often confused, that solve two different problems.

Identification: when they are found

A medical ID wristband stores information about who the person is, what condition they have, and who to ring. A bystander, a shop worker, a police officer can find that information in a few seconds. These do not track location. They speak when someone has already been found.

In the UK, the established brand is MedicAlert UK. The wristband has emergency contact and medical detail engraved on it, and MedicAlert run a 24-hour helpline that callers can ring with the ID number printed on the band to get more detail. Used by families for allergies, epilepsy, and now widely for dementia.

A newer UK option is Lumiio. Lumiio uses NFC, the same short-range wireless technology in contactless payments. A smartphone touched to the wristband opens up the person's safeguarding profile, including their name, what condition they have, and your phone number. Data sits on the band, not on a cloud server, which is why families who worry about tracking and privacy lean toward it. Lumiio partners with several UK police forces including South Yorkshire, Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire and Humberside, and with Alzheimer's Scotland.

A simpler option still is the bracelets sold by The ID Band Company or directly via the Alzheimer's Society shop. Engraved silicone, no tech, no batteries, around ten pounds.

Location: when they are missing

GPS trackers do the opposite job. They let you find someone who has walked away. These devices have batteries that need charging, they have data plans or SIM cards, and they tend to come either as pendants or as watches with locking straps so the wearer cannot remove them.

The Alzheimer's Society shop sells curated GPS locators directly. The charity does not profit-pump products onto families, which is the reason their shop is a fair place to start.

Buddi is a UK-based pendant tracker, widely used by NHS-funded telecare schemes. SureSafe sells a dementia-specific tracker with a non-removable wristband and a two-way SOS button so the wearer can call you. helloEd sells a GPS watch with a lockable strap that needs a tool to take off. Prices vary from around fifty pounds for the device plus a few pounds a month for the data plan.

Both categories of wearable matter because they answer different questions. A medical ID band does nothing for you at 11pm when you do not know where your parent has gone. A GPS tracker does nothing for the petrol-station shop worker who has found someone confused and silent. Most families end up with one of each.

What good actually looks like, in any arrangement

A wearable is a layer of safety, not a replacement for the kind of care that catches the problem earlier. A carer who knows the daily pattern notices the small change. The walking past the door, the changing into outdoor shoes, the asking about a bus route they used to take. Continuity of carer is what catches restlessness before it becomes wandering. Wearables catch wandering once it is already underway.

The other foundational step every family in this situation should take is registering with the Herbert Protocol. Most UK police forces run it. You fill in a short form with a recent photo, your relative's medical history, addresses they might head to, and the names of people they used to meet. If they ever go missing, the form is already with the police and they start searching faster.

One thing you can do this week

If you do nothing else, search your local police force website for Herbert Protocol and complete the form. It is free, it takes ten minutes, and it saves time when minutes matter.

If you want to talk through what kind of care arrangement at home would actually help spot wandering before it happens, that is the gap Hibant exists for. Hibant is a London introductory care agency. We help families find vetted carers they meet first, before any arrangement begins. With someone who knows your relative's routine, the small changes are visible. To talk it through, email hello@hibantcare.com or visit hibantcare.com.

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