ABSTRACT
‘Wandering’ or ‘wandering behaviours’ are classified as a behavioural problem, pathology, a disruptive, difficult, troublesome, dangerous, and challenging behavioural problem associated with dementia and thus requiring intervention. Within these wards, ‘behavioural’ responses to care were typically located within the individual and attributed to their diagnosis of dementia. The highly skilled work, the detailed interactional expertise, flexibility, and slower pace, required to provide high-quality bedside care for people living with dementia is currently not recognised, quantified, or mandated, within the task-based and fast-paced structures of care delivery, or in the metrics used to assess care quality within these wards. Dementia as an identity was reinforced and reflected, in clothing, in stimuli, in day-to-day equipment, and the utensils people were permitted to have and to use at the bedside, and where they were permitted to be. They became a class of patient who could quickly be identified, singled out, and returned to the bedside.
