MONTREAL – The amount of older individuals is reported missing in Canada and is raising an alarm bell for advocates, who warn the problem will only get worse as the population ages and more individuals are detected with dementia or cognitive impairments.
While less older adults were reported missing during the COVID-19 pandemic, police forces in Quebec, Saskatchewan and Manitoba are among those that have seen an increase this year in missing people over the age of 60.
Laura Tamblyn Watts, the CEO of Seniors advocacy organization CanAge, said an aging population means more seniors are getting lost and according to the police data, mentions only one part of the story, she said, because most of the individuals are found by caregivers and family, before police is informed.
The Canadian Press wanted data from police forces across Canada on the number of people age 60 and over who were reported missing. Most of them did not respond by deadline, or said the statistics were unavailable, but data from those that did suggest numbers may be increasing.
Winnipeg police said there were 104 people age 60 and over reported missing as of early December, compared with 125 for all of 2022 and 64 in 2019. The force also said that, all of them were found.
Antonio Miguel-Cruz, an associate professor at University of Alberta’s faculty of rehabilitation medicine, said that, nobody knows exactly, how many Canadians with dementia go missing every year.
Miguel-Cruz, working with a team based at the University of Waterloo, has been trying to collect those numbers with data from health information company Medic Alert, from police and search and rescue organizations and from home care facilities. He said the initial data shows that between 50,000 to 60,000 individuals with dementia in a database of almost 1.6 million Canadians have been reported missing, or about three per cent. That percentage may be low, but the volume is big.
Cities and police forces have found different methods to locate people quickly. Some, including Toronto, Halifax, Windsor and Saskatoon, have started vulnerable people’s registries which includes a person’s photo and information about them that can help if they’re found.
The RCMP is working with experts and other police forces to develop guidelines for officers to carry out interviews with people who are found, in order to find out what happened.
Some jurisdictions, including in Manitoba, have adopted silver alert systems which broadcast notices, similar to an Amber Alert for abducted children, in cases of seniors who wander because of Alzheimer’s or dementia. However, CanAge’s Tamblyn Watts is among those who worry about alert fatigue.
Tamblyn Watts said that many families are using medical alert bracelets or GPS trackers such as Air Tags to make sure that loved ones who wander are found quickly.
The Alzheimer Society of Canada predicts on its website that by 2030, about 1 million people in Canada will be living with dementia, increasing to 1.7 million by 2050. With those figures, Tamblyn Watts said it’s baffling that Canada hasn’t done more to prepare, including creating a national seniors plan. They need better health care supports and dementia-friendly communities where everyone is trained to recognize the signs of cognitive impairment and reviews of how services are provided to make sure that we are helping our people, which has increased longevity.
