Horror movies pale next to real life when you’re an Alzheimer’s caregiver. “The wandering is the hardest and scariest part,” said Liz Gardner, a Centreville, Va. resident who spent five years caring for her mother.
Gardner, her father and her sister shared watch, but her mother could still unlock doors and roam far when the caregiver had to use the bathroom or retrieve laundry.
“At our summer house in Stone Harbor, New Jersey, my father introduced my mother to the police,” Gardner recalled. A smart move, because the police escorted her home a few times.
Had her mother not passed away in September 2006, Gardner would have used Loc8tor Plus, a device recently introduced in the U.S. “This you can pin on a piece of clothing without the person knowing, so it couldn’t get lost,” Gardner said, whose mother would slip off her bracelet tracker. “You can also put the tags on things that Alzheimer’s patients tend to lose, like glasses.”
Those with Alzheimer’s, dementia, autism and Down syndrome are at greater risk of wandering off and having trouble getting home.
“It is estimated that 60 percent of people with Alzheimer’s disease wander at some point during the progression of the disease,” said Carol Steinberg, executive vice president of the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America. While an estimated 90 percent of individuals are found alive, timing is everything: for those not found within the first 24 hours, the survival rate drops to 50 percent.
Demand is growing for people-tracking devices such as Loc8tor Plus, which provides small tags on which caregivers set an invisible safety zone of up to 600 feet. If the tag-wearer roams beyond the boundary, Loc8tor Plus sets off audio, visual and vibration alerts. In “locate” mode, it guides users to tagged people and items by beeps and on-screen directional cues that resemble a high-tech game of “Hot or Cold.”
The tags also include a “Panic” button that can be pressed to call for help. No subscription is needed.
Project Lifesaver International, a Chesapeake, Va.-based nonprofit, has helped save lives by outfitting at-risk people with wristband radio transmitters that emit signals 24 hours a day. The organization also provides search-and-rescue training and rapid response services.
Loc8tor and Project Lifesaver do not use GPS because satellite interference can hamper search efforts. And to avert the need to mobilize a search, caregivers can use this new technology to help watch over loved ones.
