About Dementia
To better understand the impact of dementia and missing incidents to family caregivers, we encourage you to watch and share this short documentary about our kababayan Rosita Dela Cruz and her husband, Juanito, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease 14 year ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxSERP-YE7U&list=PLgVmOBAG_TLNEnAxhq7A-F9w9wxsiJ843
The Alzheimer Society of Ontario, in partnership with the Government of Ontario, is expanding the award-winning Finding Your WayTM program by reaching out to Arabic, Filipino, Tamil and Urdu communities. The multicultural safety awareness initiative for people with dementia who may go missing or become lost is now available in 12 languages, helping society as a whole better understand some of the behaviours associated with the disease and in turn providing tools to deal with the risk of going missing.
Finding Your Way is an award-winning program by the Alzheimer Society of Ontario that helps keep people with dementia safe. The program is now made available in additional languages including Tagalog. The Tagalog campaign,
Hanapin ang Iyong Daan , was launched in February at the North Toronto Memorial Community Centre. Materials and resources are now available for the Filipino community and can be found online:
http://www.alzheimer.ca/en/on/Finding-Your-Way-Tagalog
Why is it important to educate the Filipino community about dementia?
The risks of people going missing are greater when the community, caregivers or people with dementia themselves are unaware of the potentially severe consequences.
- Preparation and planning are crucial to prevent people with dementia from going missing, and to ensure they are found safely and quickly. Currently, there is very little awareness of missing incidents in our communities and many people do not know where to seek help.
Anyone who has dementia and is able to walk is at risk of going missing.
- Statistics show that three out of five people with dementia will go missing at some point.[1]
- 50 per cent of those who go missing for 24 hours risk serious injury or death from exposure, hypothermia and drowning.[2]
- 75 per cent of people who go missing are found within 2.4 kilometers from where they disappeared.
[1] www.alz.org, Alzheimer’s Association
[2] Search is an Emergency, Alzheimer Society of Canada
Shared by: Thessa Sandoval, Media Consultant for Alzheimer Society of Ontario Focus Communications
POSTED: March 17, 2015
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