By SemperScreen®. We own residential and commercial real estate properties across the United States, and we built the permanent sink screen for our own buildings before we sold it to anyone else.
The answer is "Yes", and this one is not our opinion. The National Institute on Aging, part of the National Institutes of Health, tells caregivers to consider disconnecting the garbage disposal, and in the same breath to put something in the drain to catch what would otherwise be lost.1 The Alzheimer's Association gives the same instruction in its own kitchen safety guidance.2 Here is why, and what goes in the opening afterward.
What the guidance actually says
Both of the organizations a caregiver is most likely to consult say the same thing about this appliance.
The NIA's home safety guidance for Alzheimer's caregiving, in its kitchen section, is direct: consider disconnecting the garbage disposal, and insert a drain trap in the kitchen sink to catch anything that may otherwise become lost or clog the plumbing.1 The Alzheimer's Association's home safety page lists disconnecting the garbage disposal alongside stove knob covers and removing decorative fruit.2
Read that NIA sentence again, because it contains two separate reasons and most people only notice one. The plumbing is the second reason. The first is that things get lost.
The framing that makes this easier. The NIA's guidance on rummaging and hiding is built on a principle worth holding onto: you take steps that allow the person to rummage while keeping them safe.3 Someone living with Alzheimer's may search through cabinets, drawers, closets and other places where things are stored, and may hide items around the house, and there is often a logical reason behind it even when they cannot tell you what it is.3
That is not a behavior to be defeated. It is a behavior to design around. Nothing in this article is about restricting a person. It is about making a kitchen where the searching costs nothing.
SemperScreen® recommends that you always refer to local building codes when modifying a building's plumbing system.
Why the drain in particular
Because a kitchen sink drain is the one place in the house where a small object is gone the moment it goes in.
A drawer can be searched. A bin can be checked, and the NIA specifically suggests checking trash containers before emptying them in case something has been hidden there or thrown away by accident.3 A drain has no such second chance. A ring, a hearing aid, a set of dentures, a key, a battery: down is down.
That is the loss the NIA guidance is pointing at when it says "become lost," and for most families it is the part that actually hurts. The clog is expensive. The wedding ring is not replaceable.
The disposal makes this worse in two ways. It is an open chamber that invites objects, and older guidance from the NIA notes people with Alzheimer's may place objects, or their own hands, into one.4 And when it runs, it destroys whatever went in. A small object dropped into a plain drain may still be sitting in the P-trap. The same object in a running disposal usually is not.
To be clear about what is ours and what is not: taking the disposal out is the guidance's recommendation, for reasons that have nothing to do with us. What we make is the answer to the question that follows it.
What to work out first
Four practical questions before anything is unplugged.
Whose home is it, and who decides. If it is your parent's own home and they are early in the illness, this is a conversation rather than a decision. If it is a rental, the lease governs what may be changed. If it is a facility, maintenance does the work, not family.
What stage you are at. The NIA's own advice is to keep thinking about home safety as the person's behavior and abilities change, and to go room by room correcting immediate dangers first.1 A kitchen that was fine last year may not be this year.
Whether the disposal is coming out or just being disconnected. Disconnecting is electrical, and it leaves the unit in place under the sink with the chamber still there. Removing it takes the chamber out and leaves a standard 3½ inch drain opening. For the reasons above, removal deals with more of the problem than disconnection does.
Where you will get help. The NIA runs the Alzheimer's and related Dementias Education and Referral Center, reachable at 800-438-4380 or adear@nia.nih.gov, and it answers caregiver questions and makes referrals to local resources.3 If this article is the first you have looked into any of this, start there rather than here.
What goes in the opening
Something has to. Model plumbing code requires a device restricting the clear opening of a sink waste outlet whether or not a disposal is present, so an empty flange is not one of the choices.5 We compared the options and their costs in what to install after removing a garbage disposal.
For this household, the choice narrows on something specific, and it is the opposite of what most people assume.
A removable basket is the wrong product here, and for an unusual reason. In most homes the argument against one is that people forget to put it back. In this home the argument is sharper: the entire premise is that small objects get picked up, moved, carried and put somewhere else. A removable part in a kitchen is not a safeguard. It is one more small object, and it will be treated like one. It can be lifted out and set down anywhere, and once it is out the drain is open again.
A permanent screen has nothing to remove. It seats in the same opening, meets the same code requirement, and is fixed to the drain body. Objects that would have gone down stay on the surface, visible, where somebody notices them at the next wash-up. That is the "become lost" half of the NIA's sentence answered directly.
Won't they just take it out, or be upset by it?
On the first, no, and that is the mechanical point of it. There is no lift-out basket, no pop-out cover, no removable part. Clearing it is something a caregiver or a family member does at the sink in a second or two with a paper towel or a hand.
On the second, this is the one that deserves care rather than a sales answer. A stainless screen sitting flush in a sink is not a visible modification in the way a stove knob cover or a door alarm is. It does not announce that something has been taken away or that someone is being managed. Families we hear from describe it as one of the few adaptations that draws no attention at all, which in a house where a lot of things are changing is worth something on its own.
And be clear about the limits. This is a kitchen sink drain, and that is all it is. It does not address the bathroom, the toilet, the laundry, or anywhere else. It is not a safety device and it does not prevent injury, and nothing here replaces supervision, a care plan, or the room-by-room assessment the NIA guidance describes.1 It handles one specific loss in one specific place.
For senior living and memory care operators
The same fixture question arrives at a very different scale.
Around 70 percent of people turning 65 today will need some form of long-term care,6 and memory care exists both as standalone facilities and as dedicated units inside assisted living communities.7 Where those units have kitchenettes, every one of them has a drain, and every one of them is used by a resident whose relationship to that drain is exactly what this article describes.
Two operational realities make the removable option worse in a facility than in a family home.
Nobody owns the sink. Housekeeping in senior living is scoped around cleaning tasks, including cleaning kitchens, rather than tidying, and what is included varies by community and by state.8 A part that has to be found, replaced and checked does not belong to anybody's scope, and parts that belong to nobody go missing.
The item retrieved matters more than the clog. A resident's ring or hearing aid recovered from the surface of a screen is a conversation with a family. The same item gone down a drain is a different conversation entirely, and it is one your staff has to have.
For facilities, the fixture takes the 5-year commercial warranty, and the multi-unit rollout detail is on properties and facilities.
What it costs
Replacing a failed disposal runs $150 to $950 professionally installed,9 and in a household where objects go into it, failure is a question of when. In published SemperScreen® collateral we anchor a plumbing service call at $250+ per call, and retrieving an object from a trap is one of those calls.
Neither figure is the one that matters here. The number families actually care about is the value of the thing that went down, and there is no price guide for that.
What we make
The SemperScreen® permanent sink screen is the only non-removable permanent sink screen on the market. It is Type 304 stainless steel with a polished finish and a brushed trim ring, one pound, fitting standard three and a half inch drains with a custom tube nut on the one and a half inch tailpiece for more thread contact. Its proprietary double-walled technology gives it a perforation surface area exceeding that of the connecting pipe, so the sink drains normally. It has been tested and COMPLIED with ASME A112.18.2-2020 / CSA B125.2-20, with the detail on our certifications and testing page.
Installation is a retrofit at about fifteen minutes per drain with no plumbing modifications, so a plumber fitting one during another visit is the usual route. More than 20,000+ sold since 2017. In a family home it carries a lifetime residential warranty.
"It's great for my mom who has dementia and obsessively puts things down the drain. I wish you guys made one for bathroom sinks." Sonia, caretaker
Sample kit ships free. No purchase commitment.
To buy locally or have a plumber fit it, use Find a Store or Plumber. If the property is on a septic system, garbage disposals and septic systems covers the second reason to take the disposal out.
Frequently asked questions
Does the Alzheimer's Association recommend removing a garbage disposal? Its home safety guidance lists disconnecting the garbage disposal among its kitchen recommendations.2 The National Institute on Aging says the same and adds that a drain catcher should go in the sink to catch anything that may otherwise become lost or clog the plumbing.1
Why do people with dementia put things down the drain? The NIA describes rummaging and hiding as common behaviors, with searching through storage places and hiding items around the house, and notes there is often a reason behind it that the person cannot express.3 A drain is simply one of the places an object can end up, and the only one it cannot be retrieved from.
Is disconnecting the disposal enough, or should it be removed? Disconnecting stops it running but leaves the chamber under the sink. Removing it takes the chamber out and leaves a standard drain opening, which addresses more of the problem. Code requires a device restricting that opening either way.5
Will a permanent screen stop things going down the bathroom sink or toilet? No. This is a kitchen sink drain fitting and it addresses the kitchen sink only. The rest of the home needs the room-by-room approach the NIA guidance sets out.1
Where can a caregiver get help with the wider question? The NIA's Alzheimer's and related Dementias Education and Referral Center takes calls at 800-438-4380 and email at adear@nia.nih.gov, and makes referrals to local and national resources.3
[Thanks Sonia for sending us your note, we wouldn't have written this without your feedback.]
References
- "Alzheimer's Caregiving: Home Safety Tips." National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health. Updated July 2025. Retrieved from https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/safety/alzheimers-caregiving-home-safety-tips
- "Alzheimer's and Dementia Home Safety Tips." Alzheimer's Association. Retrieved from https://www.alz.org/help-support/caregiving/safety/home-safety
- "Coping With Alzheimer's Behaviors: Rummaging and Hiding Things." National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health. Updated January 2026. Retrieved from https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/alzheimers-changes-behavior-and-communication/coping-alzheimers-behaviors-rummaging-and
- "Home Safety for People with Alzheimer's Disease." National Institute on Aging, room-by-room guidance, as distributed by Improving MI Practices. Retrieved from https://improvingmipractices.org/application/files/2615/7359/1431/Home_Safety_for_People_with_Alzheimers.1.22.15.pdf
- "Section 422 Sinks," 422.2 Sink waste outlets. 2021 International Plumbing Code. International Code Council. Retrieved from https://codes.iccsafe.org/s/IPC2021P3/chapter-4-fixtures-faucets-and-fixture-fittings/IPC2021P3-Ch04-Sec422
- "Assisted Living Levels of Care: A 2026 Guide to Categories and Costs." U.S. News & World Report. 2026. Retrieved from https://health.usnews.com/best-assisted-living/articles/assisted-living-categories-and-levels-explained
- "What You Need to Know About Dementia Care and Assisted Living." U.S. News & World Report. 2026. Retrieved from https://health.usnews.com/best-senior-living/assisted-living/articles/dementia-care-in-assisted-living-homes
- "Housekeeping, Laundry, and Maintenance Services in Senior Living." Oasis Senior Advisors. 2025. Retrieved from https://www.oasissenioradvisors.com/blog/housekeeping-laundry-and-maintenance-services-in-senior-living/
- "How to Install a Sink Drain Yourself." Angi. 2023. Retrieved from https://www.angi.com/articles/how-to-install-sink-drain.htm
