Help coming for lost dementia patients

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - The city of Albuquerque will start a Silver Alert program that lets the community know when an Alzheimer's or dementia patient is missing or lost.

It will include lighted billboards, computerized databases and also GPS tracking wristbands.

About 22,000 New Mexicans suffer from Alzheimer's or dementia. The Alzheimer's Association says 60 percent of people with these conditions will wander away from home or their care facility.  

On Tuesday Mayor Richard J. Berry announced the city will begin a Silver Alert system to help find people with Alzheimer's or dementia when they go missing.  

There are several pieces to the program that starts with a notification system: TV, radio, social media and reverse 911 to alert the public. 

The city will also provide free computer jump drives to caregivers that will contain the loved ones information and photograph. If they go missing, that information can be given to the responding officers for quick release to the media.

And the city received a grant from the Alzheimer's Association to buy GPS satellite-tracking wrist bands that operate on radio frequencies.  Police officers will have the tracking device in their car, which can scan an area of a 1.5 miles.  In a chopper, it has a range of seven miles.

In addition, the lighted billboards around town will flash the missing person's picture and information when there is a Silver Alert.

Berry said he hopes New Mexico will join 29 other states that have statutes that issue a Silver Alert program. In the meantime, Albuquerque will hold an informational meeting for families about the Silver Alert program at the Barelas Senior Center, 714 Seventh St. SW, on Feb. 14 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.