DEVICE TRACKS WONDERING SENIORS

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Orange and Brown
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DEVICE TRACKS WONDERING SENIORS

Post by Orange and Brown »

all the media attention given to an ongoing manhunt in Athens County for an 84-year-old Albany man who wandered away from home, a regional agency on aging wants the public to know help is available to keep track of those who suffer from dementia or other disorienting conditions.

Project Lifesaver is an organization that provides tracking equipment for people who pose a risk of wandering and getting lost, such as seniors with Alzheimer’s disease or children with autism.

According to the group’s website, people enrolled in Project Lifesaver “wear a small personal transmitter around the wrist or ankle that emits an individualized tracking signal.”

In Athens County, the local Project Lifesaver agency is the Athens County Sheriff’s Office, where officers have been trained in the use of the program’s equipment.

Gwynn Stewart, communications director for Buckeye Hills-Hocking Valley Regional Development District & Area Agency on Aging 8, said eight to 10 people in Athens County already use the tracking devices.

In Washington County, Stewart said, 15 people are enrolled in the program. This includes eight seniors with a dementia-related status, and seven children with autism or a related condition. Each wears “a bracelet, and the bracelet has a transmitter,” Stewart explained. “So that if the person does wander off, (their relatives) can contact the sheriff’s office there in Athens County.”

When caregivers notify the sheriff’s office that a person is missing, a search-and-rescue team can respond to the area and begin looking using a mobile tracking system, which can pick up the signal on the ground or in the air over several miles. So far, according to the agency, the project has safely located 1,162 wanderers – most of them Alzheimer’s sufferers, but also some special-needs children. That’s a 100 percent success rate.

The average time it takes to find a missing person is less than 30 minutes, according to the regional agency. The search typically requires only two trained officers, rather than large numbers of volunteers, aircraft, thermal-imaging equipment and tracking dogs.

The project responds to a serious problem, Stewart said. She noted that more than 5.2 million people in the United States have Alzheimer’s or a similar cognitive impairment, and that this number is expected to rise. Of that number, 59 percent will wander, and of those, 72 percent will do so repeatedly, she reported. These people are at serious risk, and that risk only goes up the longer they are missing.

At around $300, the bracelets are not cheap. However, Stewart said her agency has some funding available, and can provide a limited number of the devices for free. “It’s first come, first served here, until we run out of money,” she explained.

The agency serves Athens, Hocking, Meigs, Monroe, Morgan, Noble, Perry and Washington counties. It is based in Reno, Ohio, and can be reached by phone at 740-373-6400 or 1-800-331-2644.

For three days last week, police and emergency personnel, aided by more than 70 volunteers, searched for 84-year-old Denzle Stanley of Albany, an Alzheimer’s sufferer who had wandered away from his home the morning of Jan. 5 and not returned. The search had to be suspended Friday, due to the start of muzzle-loader deer-hunting season. The Sheriff’s Office is still investigating Stanley’s disappearance, though foul play is not suspected. The search resumed Wednesday.


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kantuckyII
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Re: DEVICE TRACKS WONDERING SENIORS

Post by kantuckyII »

I'm 'assuming' these are bouncing off cell towers? I can 'find my iphone' if I need to by logging in, and then go to find my iphone and it will show me where it's at. If need be I can also send a singal to it that will make it start sounding an alert (like you've lost it in your home and need to hear it to find it) and I can also erase everything off it if it's in someone else's hands


wink
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Re: DEVICE TRACKS WONDERING SENIORS

Post by wink »

I wonder a lot of things. I wonder if I can get one of those.
:lol:


Burg_Grad_77
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Re: DEVICE TRACKS WONDERING SENIORS

Post by Burg_Grad_77 »

I wonder if it would work better if they tracked the wandering seniors instead.


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surfsider
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Re: DEVICE TRACKS WONDERING SENIORS

Post by surfsider »

I was born under a wandering star, but I never wondered much about it. :lol:


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