Health department offers Alzheimer's Safe
Return enrollment
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[JUNE
28, 2004]
Alzheimer's disease
causes millions of Americans to lose their ability to recognize
familiar places and faces. Many people cannot even remember their
name or address. They may become disoriented and lost in their
neighborhood or far from home. It is common for a person with
Alzheimer's to wander, many repeatedly, during the disease process.
This behavior can be dangerous, even life-threatening, to
individuals and stressful for caregivers. |
There is help. The Alzheimer's
Association Safe Return program assists in the safe return of
individuals with Alzheimer's or a related dementia who wander and
become lost. Safe Return is a nationwide identification, support and
registration program working at the community level. Safe Return
provides assistance whether a person becomes lost locally or far
from home. Assistance is available 24 hours, every day, whenever a
person is lost or found.
The Logan County Health
Department is now a Safe Return enrollment site. The registration
fee of $40 can be paid by the Senior Issues Task Force of the
Healthy Communities Partnership for those unable to pay this
one-time-only, lifetime fee. Registrants and caregivers will receive
the following: an engraved identification bracelet or necklace and
iron-on clothing labels, a caregiver checklist, key chain, lapel
pin, refrigerator magnet, stickers and wallet cards, and for an
additional $5, caregiver jewelry that, in an emergency, alerts
others that you provide care for a person registered with Safe
Return.
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Alzheimer's disease causes
gradual, irreversible changes in brain cells. These changes cause
difficulties with memory, decision-making, personal care activities
and communicating, both in expressing thoughts and understanding
what others are saying. Approximately 59 percent of Alzheimer
patients living at home wander from time to time.
It is estimated that there be
as many as 700 Logan County residents suffering from Alzheimer's
disease. The Safe Return program assists in helping those who wander
get home in a safe and timely manner.
Call
the Logan County Health Department's Safe Return coordinator, Peg
Gilmer, at 735-2317 for further information or to register for this
service.
[Logan
County Health Department
news
release] |