Phone app in development could help police find missing seniors faster, experts say

Calgary police and the Alzheimer Society of Calgary are testing an app they hope will help when vulnerable seniors wander away from home.

People who download the app on their phones would receive a notification when someone goes missing within their area, said Paul Bartel, who speaks for the society.

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"Involving the local community can be a really critical component of helping people who are missing return home faster. So we think this has a lot of possibility and potential," he said.

"A lot of seniors do go missing in our community every year, and when they have health concerns, the risk of them becoming injured or dying while they're missing goes up."

More than 13,000 people in Calgary are living with Alzheimer's disease or a related dementia, the society said in a release Wednesday.

It's estimated that 60 per cent of those people will at one point wander away from homes or care facilities.

Training exercise conducted

The Calgary Co-ordinated Community Response to Missing Seniors committee is holding a day-long training exercise on Wednesday with local police and researchers from the University of Alberta, who are studying the best ways to engage the public when seniors go missing.

U of A occupational therapy professor Lili Liu says missing seniors can be easily overlooked out in the community.

A phone-based alert system could be an effective |way for community members to assist the police, she said.

'More eyes and ears'

"We're not encouraging people to be search-and-rescue teams, but when they get this information to just keep an eye out for this individual," she said.

Liu said the app could be available in about nine months after additional testing in Toronto and Vancouver. An exact business model for its distribution has not yet been worked out.

Calgary police Insp. Patty McCallum says searching for a missing and vulnerable older adult is very time-sensitive and labour intensive.

"The more eyes and ears we have out in the community, this would serve us tremendously," she said.

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