Finding Your Way Helps Caregivers Locate Loved Ones

Wednesday, 9 December 2015 07:56

The Alzheimer Society is sending out a reminder about a program meant to help keep our loved ones safe: Finding Your Way.

The Alzheimer's Society is trying to get the word out about a project that could help caregivers if loved ones ever go missing.

Behavioural Support Worker with the Alzheimer Society of Oxford Beth Haas says Finding Your Way is a project that can help police locate missing people by providing essential information. "It highlights what this person is known as, what this person's address is, what kind of identifying features they may have like scars or tattoos, it also offers the doctor's name and number and a list of medications the person is taking, as well as a list of reactions that person might have if they aren't found for awhile."

This information can be scanned to the police after obtaining consent from the client or their substitute decision maker according the Haas. "We can scan this information to the police and the police then put it in their database. You don't even need to say they're part of Finding Your Way because as soon as your husband's name is highlighted on their database all this scanned information which we've sent them - within three seconds it's in every cruiser in the area." This has already been proven to work after a man was showing erratic behaviour - the information provided by Finding Your Way let the officers know the man was not drunk or dangerous, merely suffering from cognitive impairment.

But there is more the Finding Your Way than just providing information to police - "There's a number of things associated with Finding Your Way," Haas says. "Things like a checklist of what to do to make your spouse or your family member safer, a checklist after someone has been recovered, we put together a checklist of locating devices in Oxford County - profit and non-profit. So there's a lot of forks to Finding Your Way."

For more information check out the Alzheimer Society's page