This is the Whole Care Network. Music Helping you tell your story one podcast at a time. Content presented in the following podcast is for information purposes only. Views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the host and guest and may not represent the views and opinions of the Whole Care Network. Always consult with your physician for any medical advice and always consult with your attorney for any legal advice. And thank you for listening to the Whole Care Network. Music When you've lost your loved one with dementia, it is a frightening, frightening time. Today we're talking about what you need to know if your loved one is missing and the information that you want to pass on to the people who are searching for them. We have a guest today, John Clark. John Clark. He is part of a specialized team that is focused here in the state of Georgia and the U.S. on searching for people with dementia and especially trained to do that. Right. We're sharing three tips. You ready to get started, John? Let's get started. Let's get started. Okay. Music Welcome. We're Sue Ryan and Nancy Treister. This podcast brings our years of experience in a variety of family caregiving roles to prepare you to navigate your caregiving journey. We're sharing our personal experiences, not medical advice. And because it's our passion to support you on your journey, we believe no topic is on limits. Let's get started. Music Looking for someone with dementia has its own set of unique challenges. And it's important that you understand what you can do to help the people who are searching for your loved one. So John today is going to bring to us what we need to make sure that the searchers understand and know so that we can quickly find our loved one because it's a frightening situation. John, we're looking forward to you sharing some tips on what we need to do. So tip one is first to call emergency services. So tell us about that. Yeah. You have to call them immediately. Get the police there because you're going to need them eventually. Don't spend time searching for the person. If you're searching for him, nobody's coming and you hadn't found him, then they got to come and it may take them half hour or longer to get there if they're busy. You have to call them first. The first thing you do is call them. And then it's okay to go search, but call them first. Yes, right. Then it's okay to go search. Call me if you're in Georgia and we'll come. But that is the first thing you do because you have to get somebody there. Right. You're starting the process. Right. It's good if you find them. Hey, they'll go home. That's fine. But you got to call them first. All right. I really like that. And then I think they should ask, obviously, this is not, you'll find when we talk a little bit later that it's not common to have someone who specializes in dementia, search and rescue. But seems to me they should ask when they do call emergency services, if there is a group specializing in dementia, search and rescue that those people get involved. It's a great idea to ask that. Chances are they might not be, but they might be. Maybe somebody, the police department is specialized in it. Yes. That could be great. And they'll get that person and they'll say, oh yeah, they don't think about that. So they'll say, oh yeah, we do have somebody who's available. Yeah. You think about somebody. Okay. All right. So make a priority out of your first reaction is probably going to be to go searching. And that's fine. Yeah. But call emergency services first, then go search. Right. Right. Okay. Then go search. Call them, call me. Call them anyway. Right. If I'm going to go to you, but we'll call for a family, if a family member calls us, we'll go. Okay. But we call police first. So if they're in the state of Georgia, we're going to put it in the show notes, exactly what you need to know so that you can call John and he'll, he'll get the process started for you. Right. Right. All right. Tip two is to tell the searchers what they need to know. And what I mean by this from our previous conversation is what do you want them to tell the searchers versus what the searchers are going to ask? You're going to give our family caregivers advice on what they need. The searchers need to know whether they know it or not. Right. Right. Yeah. A lot of times the police will call you and they'll ask you what they look like. They'll want a picture of them. Where were the last seen? What did they last say? Something like that. And then they'll go. You need to know more than that. They need to know more than that. Okay. Why do you want them to tell them? I want them to ask the, you know, get a picture of the person, have a picture, have a picture of at all times ready. Any times. Because they're going to want to know, they're going to want to see that. Let them have that. Okay. Well, let's talk about that for a second because you had some good ideas. Yeah. First, one thing I've learned from John is on my iPhone, there, if I take a picture, I have a picture of my care receivers that have dementia and I made them a favorite so that I'm not searching through my phone looking for a picture of the emergency happens. It's in my favorites and I can quickly get to it. You had another example of someone. Right. A lady one time, this was for a child who was missing, but he had autism and she would take a picture of him every day because he was likely missing. Well, then you've got the clothes he's got on too. The clothes he's got on and he took it and that day she handed it to the police. This is what it looked like this morning. So you have that. So pictures important. Pictures are very, very important. What else do you want them to tell them? You know, a nickname. You find out their nickname. Okay. What do they call? Maybe the grandkids call them something. Maybe they will call, find out their maiden name. Maybe now she's Mrs. Jones, but before she was Mrs. Smith. So you've got to find that out because you're thinking about, you want to find out who the person is now, but you also want to find out who they were. So share with the searchers where they are in their diagnosis. Right. So they, far enough along, a lot of people later in their, in their dementia progression, begin to sort of go backward in time. Right. And part of going backward in time is they might be more familiar with their maiden name than they are with their married name. Right. So help the searchers know where they are in what they've been talking about lately so that they're more likely to be ready to find them. Right. You told me a story. There are places that they go commonly. So for example, if someone commonly goes on a specific walk or goes down the street to somewhere, you know, that's not something that always gets asked. It's not. It's not. And that, that's something too that the search manager may not think about. We were in a search one time and we had a guy, a lady that was missing, an elderly lady, and she had a, she had a cell phone, but the searchers didn't even go in her house. They have to check the house first because that house, the house tells them, tells them some things. It tells them what to where to look. They look at the house first. They might be in the house. They may still be in the house. So you look at the house first. They didn't check the house this one time and they were, they were telling us to go search based on what this phone was peeing. The person's peeing all over here. They told us to go to the woods. They're very, very rarely in the woods. Stay away from the woods. Stay away from the woods. And you said that you told me something about water. Water is very important. Yeah. Water is very important. Water is very attractive to them. So you, you think that keeping an eye on water. Keeping an eye on the water. Yes. Search the water first at night. Anytime you guys search the water, find out where the big water, tell the police where the big water is. If there's a big pond nearby, tell them that. Okay. On the back to the other with a lady who was missing, her phone, her phone was sitting on her table in the bath, in the house. And they never searched the house. So that's one thing we had a problem. Second, a guy comes over and he says, you ever checked, you checked the senior center over there? Where she usually is. They check the senior center. There she was. Okay. So no more checkers commonly, right? Right. It's just, so find out where they go commonly. All right. And then you, you've had people on walks who've gotten lost and we have, but, but people know what the walk routine is. So make sure the searchers know. Right. We had a man about a month ago that was out walking. He was on a regular walk. He, he got lost and he, he had his phone with him. So he was a talk to his family, but he, because of dementia, he couldn't tell them where he was. He fell down. He was laying down, be very, be very calm and careful about it in the beginning. And you can save yourself a lot of trouble. Okay. So we want to make sure we're telling the searchers what we think they need to know based on really your expertise and training because not all the searchers are trained and looking for someone with dementia. Also some of the things that they may have been talking about recently, if they've been talking about the past, that's important. They're looking to the past cause they think Alzheimer's, it's, I mean, they've never, the officers, unless they've dealt with Alzheimer's really, they, they have not experienced it. I have and twice. And it's so different. You see this person and this person is normal looking, but inside their head, it's not, it's not right. Right. And it's looking, it's looking, they're looking back on history. That's what you're doing. You're looking back. Maybe he's a couple of years ago, maybe it's 20 years ago. Anytime he's been talking about going back, he's ready to walk and he's restless. He's tired. He's restless. He could, he wanders around for many, many reasons, but he's just restless. He found a door unlocked and he takes off. You got, you got to tell them, tell the officers first of all, when they get there, tell them what he's been talking about. And then you also mentioned things that they're attracted to. Yes. And this wasn't an example of a, of a person with dementia, but you had a good example of someone that they were able to find cause the mother knew things that the child was attracted to. Right. And the child was, this child was attracted to the child I mentioned a moment ago who took a picture every day. He was especially attracted to air conditioners on the side of a building and a home in the neighborhood. He got, a lot of times he was always found doing that. The helicopter goes up and sees him sitting by an air conditioner unit and they were, they, they hovered above there to the cops. That's awesome. It was awesome. It was awesome. I got, I didn't make it in that search. I got turned around and came back. Cause they found him. Well, that's why you got that right. So tip three is about really as a family caregiver, what can you expect emergency services or the police to do when they find your caregiver? Yeah. It depends on if they're injured. Usually most, most all the time they're going to take them to the hospital, let the doctor's office or somewhere in the police car or in an ambulance to get checked out because you don't know what's happened to them in the time they've been missing. Usually there's nothing wrong with them, but they could be, they could, you know, they aren't going to go at night and oh, I got to put on my clothes. I got to put a coat on. Right. They just going to go, oh, I'm going outside. They go outside. They might not have shoes on and they may be cut up. They may be. So they're going to take them and make sure they get to the hospital. Okay. Well, that's good. That's comforting. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And then that's also where medication might come in. That is, yeah. Give me a come into play. Yeah. Okay. So let's talk a little bit about the fact that you are a specialized service in the state of Georgia, which is awesome for those of us in the state of Georgia. And people can call you directly in the state of Georgia. You will call the emergency services next and then come, right? Or you can call emergency services and ask specifically for Georgia emergency search and rescue to get involved. So when you call emergency services, you can ask them, does, do we have a group that specializes in dementia in our local area and please get them involved if we do. But let's, we know this isn't a widespread thing because you do a lot of training here in the state of Georgia. Let's talk about how to raise up in that, in our local area, the need for this kind of thing and where maybe we can go to find out if this exists or at least potentially get some training for our local area. I think the Alzheimer's Association is the first place you need to stop because, because they are the police department, call the police department. They may have somebody at the police department who already is trained in search and rescue for people with Alzheimer's or dementia. The Alzheimer's Association, that's who I work with and train the police. They know, they know the police departments, they know all the police departments and they're in touch with them and they can tell you who in the state is trained in search and rescue for people with dementia and Alzheimer's. Okay, well that's good to know. And then they also would be able to help you promote that training in your local area if there isn't someone. Right. For example, in Atlanta, in Georgia really, but they'll call, if you call the Alzheimer's Association, the Alzheimer's Association will call me and tell me about it in addition to call the police. Okay, but at least if you want to raise it up, that's a place to go and that's a global organization. It's a global organization. All right, wonderful. All right, well let's summarize. Okay. So today we talked about three main tips, things we want you to know to be prepared if your loved one goes missing. Number one, call emergency services first and then go hunt for them yourself. But just keep in mind, you want those emergency services people moving before you go out on your own. If you're fortunate enough to be in the state of Georgia, you can call, we'll put the number in the show notes, you can call John and he will actually call emergency services for you, but he'll start moving as well. Separate tip is slow the searchers down if they're not specialized in dementia and make sure they have the information you know they need to know in order to find your loved one as efficiently and effectively as possible. Number three was just what to expect the emergency services to do once they find them. And wasn't really a separate tip, but sort of some final thoughts were how to get your local area in a position to have some specialized training around emergency, around searching for someone with dementia, leverage your local Alzheimer's Association chapter and they should be able to help you. If you have tips that you think will be helpful for search and rescue for people with dementia, please share those tips on our Facebook page or our Instagram page. Those links are in the show notes. If you like this podcast, please follow it or subscribe to it, rate and review it and share it with your friends. We really appreciate that. When your loved one with dementia is lost, it can be extremely frightening. So we want to make sure you have all the information you need to be as prepared as possible. We're all on this journey together.
