It's a start, folks........
http://www.news-press.com/article/20090508/NEWS0101/90508074/1003/ACC
Understanding and compassion are as important as the technology used in tracking and finding people afflicted with Alzheimer’s and other debilitating mental and physical problems, said Cape Coral Police Officer David Wagoner.
Wagoner and three other officers — Chad Hartzell, Morgan Bessette and Christopher Gugliotta — recently completed training in the department’s Project Lifesaver program, which is designed, with the aid of an electronic device, to track and find people with Alzheimer’s, autism, and Down’s Syndrome who wander away from their caregivers.
The training he and the other officers received “gave us a more in depth understanding of their problems,” said Wagoner, 41.
Under the program, 22 residents suffering from Alzheimer’s, autism and Down’s, each wear a $300 bracelet that emits a radio signal. Those signals help Wagoner and a dozen other officers track people if they wander off and become lost.
The officers are equipped with receivers. As they get closer, the signals get stronger until they find the missing person.
The training Wagoner, Hartzell, Bessette and Gugliotta just completed included 10 to 12 hours of instruction by in house teachers over a couple of days, including classroom work and training exercise in finding a lost person using the transmitting and receiving equipment, said Martha LaForest, a crime prevention specialist who coordinates the program.
But besides learning how to find a person suffering from Alzheimer’s, officers are taught about the disease, how it affects people and how to deal with them once they are found.
“You need to make sure that you don’t make a situation even more traumatizing to the person,” Wagoner said.
People with Alzheimer’s often wander off because they’re going somewhere “they may remember from years ago. They’re on a mission,” Wagoner said. He said they then become disoriented and often weak and dehydrated because of the area’s subtropical climate.
“When you find them, it’s important to make eye contact with them. You don’t want to surprise them and panic them,” Wagoner said.
Also, “you never argue with them. You listen to them and then try to get them medical help, if they need it, as quickly as possible,” Wagoner said.
Then they can be reunited with their caregivers, he said.
The program gives the caregivers peace of mind, said Theodosia McPherson, 79, of Cape Coral, whose husband, Cleveland, 87, wears one.
About two years ago, before the family knew he had Alzheimer’s, her husband wandered off one morning after she left home briefly to stop by their church.
“When I came back, he was gone. Our neighbors helped search for him, but we couldn’t find him. I was frantic. I couldn’t sit down. I was screaming,” McPherson said.
Eleven hours later, drivers reported seeing a man they said was drunk walking along Veterans Memorial Parkway, McPherson said. She said it was her husband and police found him.
“He wasn’t drunk. He’d walked for miles and was dehydrated, weak and confused,” she said.
After doctors diagnosed Alzheimer's, McPherson said she found a support group in Fort Myers who referred her to Project Lifesaver.
Cleveland hasn’t wandered off since, but if he does, she’s confident police will find him quickly with the transmitter he’s wearing, McPherson said.
Cape Coral police have used the tracking equipment three times to find the same man in his early 60s who suffered short term memory loss from an aneurism, LaForest said.
Project Lifesaver, LaForest said, continues to grow. She said she has interviews within the next week with three more people whose caregivers want to enroll them in the program.
Each caregiver is asked to pay for the transmitter, but can receive free ones in hardship cases, and she is always looking for individuals and organizations to donate money to buy the bracelets.
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