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You'd think so. My neighbor's wife decided to go on a walk in the middle of the night. She has dementia. Last year, coldest night of the year (-20f). Once cal
by odonnellryan 10y ago
You'd think so.
My neighbor's wife decided to go on a walk in the middle of the night. She has dementia. Last year, coldest night of the year (-20f).
Once called in, there were helicopters using infra-red imaging and dozens of people looking for her. There were dogs, there were police, there were friends, and there were firefighters.
She was found four hours later in the back of a car. She climbed into someone's car and fell asleep. The car was about 1000 or so feet away from their house, but down a driveway and out-of-sight for the most part.
She was okay, other than being very cold. She's still doing okay, but it shows that it's not super easy to find someone.
- barking 10y agoI wonder if there is any sort of protocol for this or do people make it up as they go along. I can imagine that a spur of the moment search like that would be chaotic at the outset. Seems like a great space for a smartphone app that could define a grid direct searchers and use GPS to track their movements.
- pm90 10y agoYeah seems like some kind of tracking device is a requirement for people with advanced dementia. Have had a couple of friends whose grandparents have disappeared; one of them was found dead the other one...is still being looked for. Is there any reason we can't use gps tags of some sort, other than privacy concerns?
- mattwinslow 10y agoApple's HealthKit/ResearchKit was extended (maybe 2 years ago?!) to include geo-fencing for basically that use case. Will try to dig up the article or github repo in a bit...
- moftz 10y agoYou can buy safety pendants that contain a GPS tracker hooked up to the cell network. It has an emergency button and can be located through the service's website. Some even have a speaker and mic so you can talk to an agent through it. I'm sure they could add a feature where if the pendant is a certain distance from home then have an alert go out to a list of contacts. Buy two of them for grandma if you really want to make sure that she is never not wearing one.