practical living
Lost and found
Alert system proposed
for people with dementia
who go missing.
Margie MacAndrew interviewed
by Dallas Bastian
population with dementia being similar. “We think it could be
very effective.”
Aged Care Insite asked MacAndrew how international
Silver Alert systems work and spoke with her about balancing
autonomy with safety.
ACI: How do Silver Alert systems work in the US, and why
should Australia look at adopting a similar system?
A
ustralian academics are calling for a Silver Alert system to
help locate people with dementia who are reported lost.
Silver Alert systems, which are similar to the Amber
variety used for missing children, operate in 18 US states. When
a person with dementia or cognitive impairment is reported
lost, media outlets, law enforcement units and departments of
transport help spread the message.
Dr Margie MacAndrew, from the QUT-based Dementia
Centre for Research Collaboration: Carers and Consumers,
said not all people with dementia who wander become lost,
but they are much more likely to than their peers who do not
have dementia.
A study by MacAndrew and her research team, published in
the Australasian Journal on Ageing, examined news articles
published between 2011 and 2015 reporting on a missing person
who had dementia.
In that time, there were 130 missing person cases, of which only
71 per cent were resolved with the person reported as found.
Just under two-thirds of those who were found were well,
while 19 were injured and 19 deceased.
MacAndrew said there is currently no Australian equivalent
to the US Silver Alert system, despite the proportion of the
16 agedcareinsite.com.au
MM: There’s not a lot of evidence to tell us what the efficacy of the
Silver Alert system is in America, even though it has been adopted
across 18 states. Over there, if a person with dementia or cognitive
impairment goes missing, a broad alert is put up, very similar to
our Amber alert.
In Scotland, there’s another system. It’s called the Purple
Alert, and it’s linked to an app that stores vital information about
the person with dementia. If the person becomes lost, the app
broadcasts its information to the larger population. The underlying
function of both these systems is that a very vast and large
announcement is put out, so that you have more eyes looking for
this person, which increases your possibility of finding them in as
fast a time as possible.
We’ll be looking at all the methods being used at the moment
internationally, and we’re going to be talking to the search and
rescue unit, as well as people with dementia and their carers, to try
and find them a system that will be effective in Australia.
You said while there was an argument for the health
benefits of wandering, including exercise and social
interaction, it can become a risky behaviour when it goes
beyond safe limits. So, when does wandering threaten a
person’s health and wellbeing?
The characteristics of wandering include not just the fact that
they’re more at risk of becoming lost, but also very repetitive
and frequent walking. So, they walk much further than anyone