ABSTRACT
Alzheimer's disease is the primary cause of dementia in the United States, with prevalence estimates at 0.5% in individuals aged 65 years, increasing to 3% at age 75 and 10% at age 85 (Breteler, Claus, van Duijn, Launer, & Hofman, 1992). During the course of the disease, the Alzheimer's disease patients exhibit a sequence of neurobehavioral disturbances. The loss of recent memory emerges at the onset of the disease and continues to deteriorate as the disease progresses. A behavior referred to as "wandering" also emerges in the early stages and is exacerbated during the course of the disease. The memory loss, one of the disease's cognitive differential diagnostic markers, has received considerable attention in the scientific literature (Chui, 1989; Khachaturian, 1985). In contrast, although wandering is another characteristic feature that has been reported as a primary problem by over 70% of the caregivers, it has received scant attention by the scientific community (Cummings & Victoroff, 1990).
