|
 White Plains, NY - Having chalked up a couple success stories already, Westchester County’s Project Lifesaver project is continuing its push to get the word out and encourage even more people to sign up.
The year-old program, which uses radio-frequency technology to find wandering seniors with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia, has already made a difference in the lives of two local families.
Project Lifesaver passed its first real test a month after it began when it found a woman from Yonkers about two hours after she was reported missing from her home. The woman’s family had just signed her up for the program the week before. County Police later located another missing senior through PLS and were activated to look for two others who were found before they began their search.
Most recently, the bracelets even claimed success in another state when a woman from White Plains took her 90-year-old father, who wore a bracelet, to South Carolina. During their visit, the father wandered away. Because South Carolina also participates in Project Lifesaver, the local police were able to pinpoint his location about a quarter mile away.
Project Lifesaver will have its next “open enrollment day” on Aug. 27 in White Plains. The event will be at the Edna L. Roker Social Adult Day Center, 311 North St., Suite 101 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Project Lifesaver aims to find seniors who wander quickly and return them safely to their families. It also tries to ease some of the enormous anxiety families feel when a loved one wanders away and they think they may be harmed or they will never see them again.
Program sponsors are the Westchester County Department of Senior Programs and Services, the ElderServe Safe Center for Seniors and International Project Lifesaver.
The program is free and open to the public but registration is required. For more information and to register, contact Melody Keel at the ElderServe Safe Center for Seniors at (914) 368-5506 or email her at
This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
.
 |
