A recent column about a local man who tried to have a Silver Alert issued for his developmentally disabled brother – who was taken to Indianapolis to work for two weeks, apparently without pay – stirred a lot of response, mostly from people who were offering solutions to similar situations.
Cynthia Caron, the founder of a non-profit organization called LostNMissing, told us about a new company called MissingPatient.com, where families can preregister information on at-risk family members.
The idea behind MissingPatient.com is that families can provide details on whether a person has dementia, Alzheimer’s, autism or short-term memory loss from a stroke and even include a photograph of the person, just in case. Then, if the person were to wander off, all the person would have to do is call the police, refer them to the Web site and give them the ID number of the missing person.
Ordinarily, Caron said, if a family finds an endangered member missing, it involves calling the police, who have to come to the house to take a report and then return to their base to have the Silver Alert issued. Sometimes the officer might get sidetracked by another call. The result, she says, is that it can take hours before a Silver Alert is issued.
Using the Web site, police can be provided information almost instantly.
Although MissingPatient.com is a for-profit company, registering a family member is free, and there is no charge to refer police to a person registered on the site.
The catch is to get police to accept the information on the site and use it when deciding to issue Silver Alerts, which are intended to be used for adults who are suffering from Alzheimer’s and other memory disorders, or who are endangered adults.
Meanwhile, lots of companies have marketed or are preparing to market devices designed to keep track of people who happen to wander off.
Those gadgets are handy, Caron says, if a family can afford them. Many aren’t cheap.
For example, a company called EmFinders is marketing a device that is just like a watch, except that it takes two hands to take it off. It uses cell phone towers to let someone locate a missing family member.
The problem with many of these devices, though, is that they can be expensive, creating financial stress for a family already stressed by the cost and difficulties of having a family member who has the potential to wander off and get lost.
EmFinders’ watch-like locaters, for example, are supposed to locate people almost anywhere, but the device costs in the neighborhood of $200 to $250, plus a monthly monitoring fee.
MissingPatient.com is due to come out next week with a cell phone that includes a GPS locater. If a person can be persuaded to carry the phone with him, including in their car, the phone can be used to locate the person wherever he is, according to MissingPatient founder Tim Holmgren, who runs the company.
Meanwhile, at least a couple of companies, one in Australia and another in the U.S., either have or are working on shoes that contain GPS devices. The advantage to the shoes is that patients with dementia or Alzheimer’s sometimes take off wrist or ankle bracelets because they don’t like them, or they don’t carry phones with them all the time.
Meanwhile, there are people who fall into gray areas. They aren’t going to wander off and not remember where they live. They are classified as endangered adults, and the biggest threat to them is that people will take advantage of them, like the man who was talked into going to Indianapolis to work for no pay.
But getting a Silver Alert issued for someone like that, experience tells us, is tough. Perhaps people just need to find their own solutions.
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