Alert system for missing seniors now law; next comes implementation

Amy Cox spends her days caring for senior citizens in East Tennessee, and recently, she spent her time at home doing the same.

Cox cared for her grandmother, Evelyn Baucum, for about two years. Baucum suffered from dementia and, every now and then, took the opportunity to slip away.

"With a senior adult, it's just like with a child, you can go upstairs for a minute to take a shower, and they can be out the door," Cox said. "I mean, she would get out and be heading down the neighborhood."

Baucum never wandered far, but if she had, Cox said she would have liked to have some sort of alert system to help find her.

Now, there is.

Back in August, Gov. Phil Bredesen signed legislation that creates an alert system, known as Silver Alert, that acts much like the Amber Alert system.

The alert would go into effect for a missing person over the age of 60 who has some sort of mental impairment and is believed to be in danger.

"When it comes to seniors, it is critically important to find those that may have wandered off within the first 24 hours - that seems to be the real window of opportunity - and that means you have to get the word out quickly to law enforcement, to media, to the general public, and get everyone involved in trying to find those who have, for some reason, not found their way home," said State Sen. Doug Overbey, R-Maryville, who co-sponsored the bill.

The Alzheimer's Association estimates around 100,000 Tennesseans are living with Alzheimer's Disease.

Six out of ten of them will likely wander away at some point. Of those, half will be found within five miles from home; if the others are not found within 24 hours, half will be seriously injured or die.

That's why Cox is thankful for the Silver Alert system.

"I think it should have been done a long time ago," she said. "There again, I think it goes hand in hand with the Amber Alert - we protect those in our population who are vulnerable, which, automatically, you would think of children and the elderly, particularly those with cognitive loss who cannot protect themselves. It makes perfect sense to me."

The Alzheimer's Association is reaching out to East Tennessee law enforcement agencies to help with training and to help develop protocols for using the system.