I am a Caregiver/Companion for seniors so I was so elated when I heard on the CTV news last night about the Silver Alert system that Manitoba wants to be the first to establish in Canada. In the United States the Silver Alert system is in 40 States.
Why Canada has to rapidly approve the Silver Alert in all Provinces. The statistics on Dementia and Alzheimer's is staggering
500,000 cases of some form of Dementia and Alzheimer's to date
25,000 new cases each year
6-10 Dementia or Alzhemer's patients wonder away
What is the Silver Alert?
A Silver Alert is the name for a system to alert the public for a missing person who is particularly vulnerable.
Originally named for elderly, silver-haired missing people with various forms of dementia, the Silver Alert has been expanded to include other categories of vulnerable missing people. These include
Alzheimer’s disease, which can affect people as young as 40 years old
Dementia
Developmental disability
Cognitive disabilities such as brain injuries
People with these conditions can experience memory and other cognitive deficits. They may wander away from home, and forget how to get back. They can believe that they are their younger selves, heading for a job they had in the past, or a childhood home. They may not know they are lost, and may not ask for help.
People like this can vanish in an urban area and be very difficult to locate. They can perish, metres away from assistance. But because nobody knows they are lost, and they can’t ask for help, there is nobody to help them.
The goal of the BC Silver Alert is to provide a valuable public alerting system so that specific, targeted alerts can assist first responders to locate missing people who meet the criteria for urgency and vulnerability.
source: https://www.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=1071230