A new scheme using Bluetooth location trackers will safeguard people living with dementia, Avon and Somerset Police have announced today.
The small tracking devices have up to a three-year battery life and require no maintenance.
The national Dementia Safeguarding Scheme was originally founded in 2015 to make missing person searches for dementia patients more efficient, and is now introducing the new technology.
The project will now use Tile devices and Life360 software to enable authorised family members and carers to access location data, providing reassurance. It could be potentially lifesaving, as in missing person incidents it could enable emergency services to quickly locate the person living with dementia.
The tracking tags are labelled with ‘I have dementia’ and have a QR code which can be scanned for more information from Avon and Somerset Police.
Since it’s inception, the Dementia Safeguarding Scheme has assisted and protected more than 1,600 people living with dementia. Up until now, the scheme mainly used ‘NFC’-enabled technology. Thousands of those wristbands and tags have been distributed, which can be scanned by emergency services to quickly identify the wearer.
One Professor of Dementia Research, Michael Hornberger, found that missing person incidents had been reduced by 80% for the registered people with dementia.
