If you’re searching for a simple yet effective way to prevent dementia patients from wandering off, you might consider this intriguing German approach: fake bus stops.

Directors at the Benrath Senior Centre in Duesseldorf, tired of relying on local authorities to round up roving patients, joined forces with a local care association and the public transportation department to erect a faux bus stop outside their facility.

The idea is that seniors who wander will recognize the familiar green and yellow bus stop and wait there to be taken home. Care givers retrieve the patients from the stop by telling them the bus will be along shortly, and then they invite them in for a cup of coffee, says Richard Neureither, Benrath’s director.

This offbeat concept has proven so effective, several other nursing homes around Germany have set up their own bus stops to snare seniors, reports the Telegraph.co.uk.