The piece will cover the loss of, and search for Nancy as an example of the many challenges faced by those with Alzheimer's and their families.
This is very good news as it pushes information about Nancy out beyond the LA area which is where our heaviest coverage has been, to date.
It will air at 11:00 AM Pacific Time, on Monday, 9 January 2017.
Click here to find the station and time for your local viewing:
Link to find out when The Doctors airs, near you...
It will air at 11:00 AM Pacific Time, on Monday, 9 January 2017.
Click here to find the station and time for your local viewing:
Link to find out when The Doctors airs, near you...
Please spread the word!
I saw the posting on the message board at alzconnected.org. I'm so sorry to hear this. It has to be terrifying for both her and her family.
ReplyDeleteOne of the problems with Alzheimer's patients wandering away is that they can sound so normal to people not familiar with Alzheimers. About 30 years ago, long before I had any knowledge of Alzheimer's, a woman knocked on my door. When I opened the door, she asked if I could call her a cab so she could get home. I asked where home was, and she told me it was near the Antioch Church, which I knew was about a mile away as the crow flies, but about a 5-mile drive. I told her I'd drive her. When we got there, she said she recognized the church, but not any of the houses nearby. By this time, I sensed something was wrong and asked if she had a driver's license. She gave it to me and shockingly, her address was accross the street from my house.
As it turned out, she was staying with her son and his family, who had stepped out for a few minutes and thought she'd be okay. Unfortunately, Nancy's story could be a similar one where she asked someone for a ride and ended up almost anywhere. If this were the case, I'd also look around any facilities near her old addresses.
Mike
Mike, Thanks for your note. Yes, one can't imagine how terrifying it must be for Nancy to be away from the safety and security of Kirk, her family, home, and friends. And a continuing nightmare for her family and friends. We all need to be more aware of members of our community who may be suffering from dementia and "wandering", and work to help them find their ways home. We've had quite a bit of coverage with flyers and print media in the areas of her childhood home and adult home and will continue to search...
DeleteHow do you all feel about a tattoo or a chip or something permanent that they can't remove? I know this sounds like Nazi Germany but with their inclination to wander and the fact they look like otherwise normal adults they easy can blend in and disappear.
ReplyDeleteThere are two goals when it comes to managing wandering people who may not be able to communicate effectively: tracking where they are, in real-time, and identifying who they are once they have been found. For tracking in real-time there are a number of providers of non-invasive tracking devices. The one that seemed to hold most promise for someone like Nancy provides insoles for shoes in which are embedded tracking devices. www.gpssmartsole.com Once the wanderer has been found there are providers of a variety of identification bracelets, anklets, and clip/lock-on devices for clothes that either contain written and bar code information about the wanderer, or a radio frequency identification (RFID) chip that allows first-responders to get ID info. There is also a small community of people who are experimenting with putting RFID tags under their skin, like those used with pet tracking, to interact with their environments. To my knowledge, there is no effort to track humans using such tags as most wanderers are found and identified fairly quickly and it would be probably be costly to provide RFID "readers" across the first-responder community to support this.
DeleteThank you so much. I suspect I will be facing this problem in the future and am glad to hear about this.
ReplyDeleteStill praying for you all and think of you often for Nancy to be found and come home safely
ReplyDelete