Missing person cases involving dementia challenge police

MISSING PERSONS

Robert Gleason: white male, 5-foot-7-inches tall, weighing 135 pounds with gray hair and brown eyes. He suffers from medical issues.

Marian Gleason: white female, 5-foot-6-inches tall, weighing 155 pounds with blonde hair and blue eyes.

Vehicle last seen in: Red 1997 GMC Sierra pickup truck; Ohio plate number BD30HS.

If you spot the missing couple or their vehicle, call 911.

Source: West Chester Police Department

Who is at risk of wandering?

Tips to prevent wandering

Source: Alzheimer’s Association

The search for a missing elderly couple this week is bringing renewed focus of how to keep a senior citizen safe and when to report a disappearance.

Robert C. Gleason, 85, and Marian L. Gleason, 86, reportedly left their residence in the 4400 block of Bromyard Avenue in West Chester Twp. around 11 a.m. Tuesday and have not been seen since, West Chester police said Thursday.

There was no indication of foul play, forced entry or anything amiss at the home or on the property and the vehicle was gone from the residence, police said.

Edgar Gleason, the couple’s son, told police his parents have gotten lost before while driving. Both individuals do take regular medications and may suffer from early stages of dementia, according to police.

That’s becoming a more frequent occurrence nationally and locally as seniors of baby boomer age and beyond increase in lifespan and contend with not only grey hairs and the challenges of retirement, but first stages of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

For those who get lost in Ohio, it helps that a Senate Bill 87 changed Ohio law and created the Missing Adult Alert system, which created in 2008 a statewide emergency alert program to aid in the identification and location of missing adults who are endangered and have a mental impairment or are 65 years of age or older.

As a result of the law, local law enforcement agencies typically drop most everything to search for a lost senior citizen, considered to be a critical missing person.

While most people are found relatively close to home — the Alzheimer’s Association puts it at 1.5 miles — not all cases of missing local seniors end in the area.

A 78-year-old Butler County man with Alzheimer’s was found on U.S. 50 in Cincinnati in 2012 after his vehicle ran out of gas, according to news reports. The man didn’t have his wallet or driver’s license when he was found.

At least 5.2 million Americans have Alzheimer’s disease, including 4.9 million over age 65 and another 200,000 to 500,000 under 65 with early onset Alzheimer’s or other dementia, according to the Alzheimer’s Foundation, which estimates that 60 percent of them – about 3 million people – are likely to wander in the course of their disease. Among people with dementia, which is one of the symptoms of the disease, at least 50 percent could die or suffer serious injury if they stay missing for more than 24 hours.

Six out of 10 people with Alzheimer’s will wander, according to the Alzheimer’s Association - Greater Cincinnati Chapter.

“It may be as simple a thing as they go to the grocery store or some place they’re very familiar with and suddenly they just can’t remember how to get home and they’re surprised themselves that they can’t remember,” said Laurie Petrie, spokeswoman for Council on Aging of Southwestern Ohio. “They’re just kind of lost.”

The whole idea of seniors driving, particularly for ones who have dementia, is a very difficult topic for seniors and their families since driving in modern culture represents freedom, independence and self sufficiency, Petrie said.

“The topic of driving is becoming more complex as more and more people are living longer and their ability to drive may become impaired,” Petrie said. “Even for someone who doesn’t have dementia, perhaps their eyesight or their reflexes aren’t as good.”

Having dementia or Alzheimer’s only compounds that by adding the factor of them getting lost at any moment without notice, she said.

While many seniors may voluntarily cut back on their driving, avoiding driving at night, at times of heavy traffic or longer distances, there are some who simply don’t realize they are impaired or they don’t want to have their freedom diminished.

“They’re used to being able to go where they want to go, when they want to go there,” Petrie said. “With Alzheimer’s or other dementia they can get lost, because obviously they forget where they’ve gone. Taking away someone’s freedom is a very hard thing.”

“When families address that with someone who has dementia, they need to be real sensitive about what the person is losing,” Petrie said.

That’s what Anita Scott Jones of Middletown sought to do recently when she told her father, who has early onset dementia, that driving was no longer an option.

She said she had to make five trips in the past six week to Alabama because of dementia-related incidents involving her father or mother. The most recent incident involved her 81-year father going missing from an assisted living facility and being found eight hours later on the side of a road.

“It was nerve wracking because we were calling his cellphone and it would go straight to voice mail,” Scott Jones said. “When you have a parent that you don’t know where they are, you start thinking all kinds of things and they’re not ever good things.”

She went down to Alabama the next week and took her father’s key and his truck.

“It was the best thing, because I can’t continue to allow him to endanger his life and even innocent people that could be affected,” she said. “I had to make the hard decision but it was the right thing to do. I’m not his favorite child right now.”

While no state law or action by a relative is a foolproof way of safeguarding seniors, there are a numbers of proactive measures the relatives or friends of a missing senior citizen should do for local law enforcement as soon as possible, according to Melissa Gerhardt, spokeswoman for the Butler County Sheriff’s Office.

“As soon as you realize that the person is missing, call the local authorities and have as much information as possible about the person or people that could be missing.

That includes what they last were seeing wearing, their vehicle make and model, their patterns of behavior, the places they frequent and the people they visit.

Also of use are cellphone numbers, identifying marks on a vehicle, where they shop and the pharmacies they patronize.

“We don’t have a magic lamp to find people,” Gerhardt said. “A lot of times when do find people, it’s based on good information we get from family, friends and neighbors.”

Typically, when a missing senior is found, it’s at a place they’ve visited before or a place they visit often.

Det. Richard Burkhardt of Hamilton Police Department said law enforcement agencies at their front desks often provide Safe Return program forms from the Alzheimer’s Association to relatives of those diagnosed with the disease.

Those forms includes everything from physical characteristics and medical conditions to contact information and drug allergies.

“It helps us a ton because if there’s an Alzheimer’s patients that goes missing, basically … we consider like a critical missing person,” Burkhardt said. “It’s like a kid being missing … All the guys (officers) on the street kind of drop everything and we start looking. Alzheimer’s patients, they can wander off and who knows where they could be. They could be in a field and they don’t know where they are.”