Struggling with dementia issues? Important new information

Help for people with dementia and those who care about and for them them is readily available through a new program delivered by the Alzheimer Society of Ontario.

The Finding Your Way Wandering Prevention Program is designed to raise awareness of risks for people with dementia and strengthen community response in case they go missing.

“This public service campaign will provide a variety of tools for persons with dementia and their caregivers to reduce the likelihood of missing persons’ episodes and to help manage them when they do happen,” says Carolyn Cybulski, executive director, Alzheimer Society of Sault Ste. Marie and Algoma District.

“The campaign will also serve to educate the public about positive measures they can take to help persons with dementia who have lost their way.”

The Alzheimer Society is distributing kits with tips and resources to help families and caregivers prevent wandering incidents and act quickly in cases of missing seniors.

The kit - offered in different languages with more to be added in 2014 - includes:

• An identification kit with space for a recent photo and physical description hat can be shared with police in an emergency

• At-home safety steps to help prevent missing incidents from occurring

• Steps to safeguard a person with dementia, such as using the Alzheimer Society of Canada’s MedicAlert Safely Home program

• Tips on what to do when a person with dementia goes missing and when reuniting after a wandering incident

• The latest information on locating devices.

Locally, kits are available at the Alzheimer Society’s office at 341 Trunk Road (at the corner of Trunk and Capp Avenue across from Superior Chrysler Dodge Jeep).

According to the Alzheimer Society, three out of five people with dementia go missing at some point, often without warning.

Fifty percent of seniors missing for 24 hours risk serious injury or death from exposure to the elements, hypothermia and drowning.

Seventy-five percent of seniors who go missing are found within 2.4 kilometers from where they disappeared.

Currently, 200,000 Ontarians have dementia and the number of people with some form of the condition is expected to rise to nearly 250,000 seniors by 2020.

The province's Action Plan for Seniors is funding the new program and also helping the Ontario Police College to develop and deliver police training that incorporates wandering prevention into the police curriculum.

The Finding Your Way Wandering Prevention Program kit's availability in multiple languages "will make it easier to reach Sault Ste. Marie’s diverse population,” notes Sault MPP David Orazietti in a new release.