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With the elderly population increasing throughout Florida, law enforcement are responding to more silver alerts each year.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — An elderly woman who went missing earlier this week is reunited with her family.
A Silver Alert went out — due to the woman’s health risks as her family says she’s diagnosed with Dementia. And the number of these reports is rising.
But what are Silver Alerts? The Florida Department of Law Enforcement use them to find people who are 60 years old or older who are suffering from memory loss.
If the patient is found, according to Gregory Day, a neurologist with Mayo Clinic it’s typically somewhere that they’ve never been before.
“Patients may not know that they have a problem with memory or thinking. Or they may not appreciate the full extent of that problem. And so if you don’t really recognize your own limitations, you may continue to do things even when you can’t do it safely,” explained Day.
He is leading a new kind of study to develop treatment before the symptoms of dementia set in. Saying looking at your brain health now could save you from the incurable disease, to decrease the number of silver alerts throughout the state.
“How we keep our brains healthy as we age and the decisions we make early on have a lot of impact on how we age later on,” Day added.
With more than a half a million people living with Alzheimer’s in the state of Florida according to the Department of Elder Affairs, this warning could potentially save the life of someone who may not even realize they’re missing.
According to Crime and Safety Expert, Ken Jefferson, it takes a team of police officers and resources to locate the missing person with Dementia.
“They may walk out into traffic, they may approach someone who doesn’t want to be approached and they become violent because they don’t understand the situation,” Jefferson said.
He adds the longer they’re missing, the likelihood of them being found decreases.
Mayo Clinic is still looking for people to be a part of their AHEAD Alzheimer study. Click here to see if you qualify to be a part of this paid clinical trial.
