SAFELY HOME

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SAFELY HOMEAlzheimer Wandering Registry

• Randy Antonio - Detective Constable,
• Missing Persons Unit
• Winnipeg Police Service
• Janice Hebb - Client Services Coordinator,
• Alzheimer Society of
  Manitoba

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Defining Wandering Behaviour...

• movement by a person with dementia, whether
  aimless or purposeful, on foot or by other means,
  which occurs when certain cognitive losses and
  environmental circumstances intersect, causing
  that person to become lost in an unsupervised and
  potentially unsafe setting

Silverstein, Flaherty and Tobin (2002)
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Symptoms Getting Lost

• Memory loss
• Disorientation to time and place
• Decreased judgment
• Lack of sense of lapsed time

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Why Might People with Dementia Wander?

• Changed Environment
• Excess Energy
• Searching for the Past
• Expressing Boredom
• Continuing a Habit

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Safely Home - Alzheimer Wandering Registry

• Established 1995
• Registration voluntary one-time fee of 35.00.
  The Safely Home program is free of charge to
  individuals who are veterans
• Information is stored on CPIC database

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Register Early

• Register people with Alzheimers disease and
  other dementias with Safely Home before they
  become lost.

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The Benefits of Safely Home.

• Designed to help find a person who is lost and
  assist in a safe return home
• Registrants are given a unique ID bracelet and
  cards with a number linked to CPIC

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Safely Home Bracelet
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Safely Home Bracelet

• Front
• Urgent See Other Side

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Safely Home Bracelet

• Back
• Identification Number (linked to CPIC)
• Persons First Name
• Memory Loss
• Call Police

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The Benefits of Safely Home.

• Designed to help find a person who is lost and
  assist in a safe return home
• Registrants are given a unique ID bracelet and
  cards with a number linked to CPIC
• Family is given information to help them should
  the person get lost

• Safely Home is linked to the American Safe Return
  program

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Safely Home...How Can It Help?

• When a registrant goes missing
• the caregiver calls the local police.
• the police will access CPIC to find pertinent
  information including
• personal history, physical characteristics and
  locations where the person is known to visit.

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Safely Home...How Can It Help?

• When a registrant is found
• the identification number from the persons ID
  bracelet is used to search CPIC
• This tells where the person lives and who to
  contact.

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How to Register Someone with Safely Home

• Contact your local Alzheimer Society
• You may also download a registration form from
  our website www.alzheimer.mb.ca or
  www.alzheimer.ca
• You may also call our toll free number
• 1-800-378-6699

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For More Information

• Contact Janice Hebb
• Client Services Coordinator
• Alzheimer Society of Manitoba
• 10 - 120 Donald Street
• Winnipeg, MB R3C 4G2
• [phone] Ext. 203
• 1-800-378-6699
• Or the Regional office nearest you

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Video

• Safely Home Program

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Search and Rescue
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Accessing Data

• To query Safely Home (known as Wandering Persons
  Registry on CPIC) complete the mandatory Query
  Person keywords and enter
• WANDER Yes (Y) (will search the entire CPIC
  database including Safely Home) or ONLY (searches
  only the Safely Home database on CPIC)
• MA for those registered prior to 1997 with the
  persons MedicAlert identifier or after 1997
  with the Safely Home bracelet number

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CPIC Screen
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Data in the Record

• A query may result in obtaining any or all of the
  following information on the person (the
  comprehensiveness of the data depends upon how
  complete a record was supplied to the Alzheimer
  Society).It may include
• personal history, physical characteristics and
  locations where the person is known to visit.
• Name, description,contact information.

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Unique Traits

• People with Alzheimers Disease
• have a 50 chance of being injured or dying from
  exposure, hypothermia or drowning if they are not
  found within the first 12 hours - SEARCH IS AN
  EMERGENCY! 
• are often not aware that they are lost. 
• often walk in a straight line until they become
  stuck - they will not walk out of a wooded area -
  they will stay stuck. It is therefore helpful to
  know which door the person exited.

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Unique Traits

• Their path may not be a logical one. Searchers
  should resist the temptation to plot a search
  based on logical deduction. Even if the person
  with Alzheimers disease is going somewhere
  specific like a former residence, they will often
  not follow a logical path.
• The most common places where a person with
  Alzheimers disease is found are in creeks,
  drainage areas, or caught in briars or bushes.
  90 of these individuals will be found within a
  mere one mile of the place they left.

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Unique Traits

• People not involved in the official search often
  find them, such as neighbours or people driving
  by. Therefore having a strategy for notifying the
  community is important.

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Preparing

• What can be done in your community?

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SEARCH is an Emergency

• A resource to help organizations who care for
  people with Alzheimers disease to develop a
  search plan
• The activities encourage involving the police and
  community in preparing for a search

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Video

• Search and Rescue