85 Year Old Dementia Patient Missing After Walking Away From Facility

For the second time in the past few months, in my local area, a person suffering from dementia has wandered away and been missing.  Bernice Holcomb was reported missing from a Paso Robles, California, care facility at about 3 pm, on Friday, March 28, 2008.  Police began a search and she was located at about 6:30 pm the same day.  She had evidently walked away from the care facility.

This situation highlights the risk that even though someone is in a care facility it is still possible for a dementia patient to simply wander away.

Not long ago an elderly Pismo Beach man suffering from Alzheimer's was reported missing, and was found riding a bycycle 20 miles south in the city of Santa Maria.  I live next to Pismo Beach, and the thought of him riding a bike down Highway 101, the main highway up the California coast, is very frightening.  He had never wandered far from his home before.  His family said he might never have been found if he had not been wearing a Project Lifesaver electronic bracelet with a tracking device. 

These bracelets can be tracked by land or air, and he was located by a helicopter that picked up the signal on the bracelet.  At the time he was still a moving target, riding the bicycle.  Santa Maria is a large enough city that there can be a lot of traffic on multi-laned highways, especially late in the afternoon.  Many of the streets are too busy for safe bike riding, and it is especially dangerous for someone with dementia to be riding a bike there.

When I worked for a skilled nursing facility one of the patients who had dementia was reported missing one day.  Police began a search.  That evening some people called in to say they had come home and found an elderly woman sleeping on the couch of their unlocked house.  The patient had evidently walked out the facility's locked doors when visitors went out.  She was several blocks away, and the nearby streets were busy downtown streets.  Evidently she walked for awhile, and then found the house with an unlocked door, and laid down on the couch to take a nap.  Her wristband identified her as a resident at the skilled nursing home.

These stories highlight the importance of identification bracelets for people who have Alzheimer's or Dementia.  The electronic tracking bracelets found at the website for Project Lifesaver offer the benefit of tracking by air or land.