Lili Liu is dean of the University of Waterloo’s Faculty of Health. Adebusola Adekoya is a PhD candidate and Antonio Miguel Cruz is an adjunct associate professor at the University of Waterloo’s Faculty of Health.
With more than 7.5 million Canadians aged 65 or older, our country is facing a growing challenge in keeping older adults safe, particularly those living with dementia, cognitive impairment, brain injury and other conditions that put them at risk of going missing. Between 40 and 60 per cent of people living with dementia go missing at some point, and if not found within 24 hours, nearly half will experience serious injuries or worse. This is a national crisis – and it calls for a national solution.
The tragic case of Shin Noh, a 64-year-old retired pastor in B.C., is an example of why we need a national Silver Alert program. Mr. Noh did not want his community to know he had dementia when he went missing in 2013. He was never found and his family presumes he is dead. If there had been a system to issue out public notifications through media or mobile devices to share information about him, maybe he could have been found alive.
Mr. Noh’s disappearance prompted public advocacy and a promise from the province to establish a citizen-led Silver Alert program, a notification system aimed at locating missing seniors. More than a decade later, there is still no program in B.C.
Some progress has been made in other provinces, but those measures don’t go far enough. While the provinces of Manitoba and Alberta have amended their missing persons act to include Silver Alerts, these amendments simply bring to attention older adults with dementia as a category of individuals at risk. Contrary to assumptions, the amended legislation is not associated with programs or public funding. Quebec, meanwhile, has tested Silver Alerts, but only as a pilot project.
In 2019, Ottawa responded to a petition to establish a nationwide Silver Alert program by delegating it back to the provinces. The National Public Alerting System (NPAS), better known as Alert Ready, is used to warn about imminent hazards to life, including Amber Alerts, which inform the public about suspected child abductions through radio and TV broadcasts and messages to mobile phones.
Older adults who get lost and go missing are usually within four to 12 kilometres of their last known location. That relatively small area likely means an NPAS alert would not be appropriate. To be effective, Silver Alerts would be localized to the geographic area and recipients of the alerts would need to opt in to the program, or volunteer to be “extra eyes on the ground.”
Scotland already has a free mobile app called Purple Alert, which allows family members to send a notification to community members when someone with dementia goes missing in their area. A similar app was developed in Canada, but alerts cannot be sent by family members and must be triggered by police services, who already tap social media platforms such as Facebook for community-wide alerts.
What would it take to have a more robust Silver Alert program in Canada? It would have to be a free app that guarantees privacy and protection for persons at risk and their care partners to upload relevant information to be shared when a person is missing. It would also require an opt-in feature to allow care partners, community members and service providers to receive alerts within a certain area. More importantly, it requires sustainable funding to cover costs of technology, education and implementation.
When it comes to the risk of seniors going missing, a Silver Alert is just one tool in a broad approach to protect our aging population. Wearable GPS trackers can help us locate loved ones. Data analytics can identify behaviour patterns and movement that may indicate an increased risk of going missing, allowing for timely intervention. Prevention can include simple strategies such as notes to remind a senior of their destination or to notify others of their condition. Internalized and unaddressed societal stigma is a risk to seeking and providing help, as in the case of Shin Noh. But even those strategies together can fail.
Despite all preventative efforts, a person with dementia can still go missing, regardless of whether the individual is living at home in the community, or in a care facility.
Canada already has a national dementia strategy and we believe it should include the development of a nationally coordinated, localized Silver Alert program that care partners and community members can opt in to. As increasing numbers of older Canadians face the risk of going missing due to dementia or other ailments, a Silver Alert program will save lives and safely reunite families.