Getting Home Safely with Dementia

Research to help improve outcomes for people living with dementia who go missing in Australia

People living with dementia are at greater risk of becoming lost and experiencing devastating outcomes as a result. Confusion about how to report a missing person living with dementia to police could delay search efforts which can increase the risk of adverse outcomes.

We are leading research to help address this. To date we have:

  • Conducted a national survey to help us gauge the current understanding of procedures for reporting a missing person in Australia. In total 564 Australians completed the survey: 152 family carers, 131 members of the general public and 246 health professionals. Worryingly, 50% of those who completed the survey thought they needed to wait 24-hours before reporting a missing person to police or didn’t know when to report. Key reasons for not reporting a missing person living with dementia to police included not wanting to waste police time, wanting to conduct a search first and the belief that the person would make it home unaided. Findings from this study confirmed the need for raising awareness of when and how to report a missing person to police in Australia.
  • Held online public consultation forums where we sought informed opinions from key stakeholders (members of general public, family carers of people living with dementia, health professionals and police) about how to improve the health outcomes of missing persons living with dementia. From these forums, recommendations were made to both reduce the risks of a person living with dementia becoming lost and improve reporting procedures if someone does go missing.
  • Interviewed people living with dementia or memory problems about their views of the recommendations generated from the public consultation forums. We spoke with ten people living with dementia who reviewed the recommendations and provided valuable feedback related to their personal opinion of the acceptability of these recommendations. There was consensus that raising public awareness about dementia and the risk of people with dementia becoming lost, early and ongoing assessment to identify the risk of becoming lost, engagement in meaningful activity, introducing a Missing Persons Policy to guide a prompt response to a missing persons event in health care services, and using a public alert system to involve the public in search efforts, were all acceptable recommendations. For the other recommendation: health services should monitor people living with dementia at risk of becoming lost, people living with dementia should wear GPS tracking devices and  ID bands, and individuals should notify their communities about their personal risk, participants had both positive and negative views.

What is next?

Thanks to Dementia Australia Research Foundation, we are conducting the next phase of this project. Based upon our previous findings, we have developed an intervention to be trialled in residential aged care. The 3Ps (Prevent, Prepare and Prompt Response) to Getting Home Safely with dementia intervention will include a new risk assessment (PREPARE) and care planning tool (PREVENT) and a Missing Persons policy (PROMPT RESPONSE). We look forward to sharing our findings after our trial.

If you have any queries, please contact us:

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