RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, each year, millions of Americans who are afflicted with Alzheimer's disease lose their ability to recognize familiar places and people, and can easily become lost and wander far from home; and

WHEREAS, Alzheimer's disease is a degenerative brain disease that affects memory and mental abilities, causing millions of Americans to lose their ability to recognize familiar places and faces and to communicate with others; and

WHEREAS, age is the leading risk factor for Alzheimer's disease, and Hawaii has the fastest-growing gray population in the United States, as one in four Hawaii residents will be sixty years of age or older by 2020; and

WHEREAS, more than four million older Americans, including 20,000 Hawaii residents, have Alzheimer's, a disease that usually develops in those sixty years of age or older, and that number is expected to triple in the next twenty years; and

WHEREAS, as many as seventy per cent of Alzheimer's patients will wander, sometimes frequently, from their homes and become disoriented or lost in their neighborhoods or as far as 2,000 miles from home; and

WHEREAS, families and caregivers of those with Alzheimer's disease live in constant fear that their loved ones may become disoriented and stray beyond the safety of their homes, as such incidents may occur even when patients are vigilantly monitored; and

WHEREAS, Safe Return, a program of the Alzheimer's Association, assists families and caregivers by promptly identifying and returning those Alzheimer's sufferers who become lost or disoriented; and

WHEREAS, Safe Return provides Alzheimer's patients with an identification bracelet or necklace, clothing labels, and wallet cards featuring a toll-free crisis number that help signal that the individual is memory-impaired and may need help; and

WHEREAS, to assist in the locating and return of lost persons, Safe Return maintains a national information and photo database that includes important emergency contact information and photographs of Alzheimer's patients, a toll-free crisis line, and a fax alert notification system, all available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week; and

WHEREAS, in addition to its identification services, Safe Return acts as an education center for those families coping with Alzheimer's disease, offers training on how to handle wandering behavior, and provides information through a nationwide network of more than 300 community-based offices of the Alzheimer's Association; and

WHEREAS, Safe Return's success depends upon community cooperation, such as radio and television stations that broadcast the names and photos of missing Alzheimer's patients, and those citizens who take responsibility for helping them play a vital role in this important public health effort; and

WHEREAS, Safe Return is an invaluable resource for families and caregivers of individuals with Alzheimer's disease, serving a critical health care need in communities statewide and across the nation; and

WHEREAS, since its inception in 1993, the Alzheimer's Association's Safe Return Program has helped reunite more than 7,500 lost wanderers and their families and caregivers, with better than 99 per cent of registered wanderers safely returned; and

WHEREAS, in Hawaii, there are over 1,161 elders registered in the Alzheimer's Association's Safe Return Program; and

WHEREAS, the Alzheimer's Association is the largest national voluntary health organization dedicated to advancing Alzheimer's research and helping those affected by the disease and their families and caregivers; and

WHEREAS, the Association, through its local chapters, works closely with law enforcement, emergency medical personnel, transit personnel, and other front-line personnel most likely to be called upon to provide assistance to lost persons, including those exhibiting symptoms characteristic of Alzheimer's disease; and

WHEREAS, it is essential for law enforcement, emergency services personnel, transit personnel, and other public servants to utilize appropriate techniques in approaching and addressing the lost individual, and to be aware of and able to access programs and services designed to assist in their safe return; and

WHEREAS, the Association offers specialized education and training at no cost, to enable law enforcement, emergency medical personnel, and transit personnel, and others to recognize the signs of Alzheimer's disease and dementia and to deal with them appropriately; and

WHEREAS, providing specialized training will help law enforcement and emergency medical personnel and other public servants to respond appropriately, allow wanderers to be reunited with their families and caregivers more quickly, and protect the health and safety of both the wanderer and the general public; and

WHEREAS, the Safe Return Program should be incorporated into the training of law enforcement, public safety, emergency medical personnel, and transit personnel, to help them recognize individuals with Alzheimer's disease and to deal with them appropriately; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the House of Representatives of the Twenty-Second Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2003, the Senate concurring, that the Legislature declares April 9, 2003, to be "Safe Return Day" in the State of Hawaii; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that law enforcement, emergency medical personnel, transit personnel, and others with front-line responsibilities, be encouraged to incorporate the Safe Return Program and specialized training into existing systems and programs; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Concurrent Resolution be transmitted to the Director of Public Safety; Directors of the Executive Office on Aging and the county Area Agencies on Aging; Chiefs of the Honolulu, Maui, Kauai, and Hawaii Police Departments; Chiefs of the Honolulu, Maui, Kauai, and Hawaii Fire Departments; Directors of Emergency Services and Transportation Services, City and County of Honolulu; Director of Management, County of Maui; Director of Transportation, County of Kauai; Director of Mass Transit, County of Hawaii; President of Oahu Transit Services, Inc.; President of OTS Paratransit Services, Inc.; President of Maui Economic Opportunity, Inc.; President of Akina Aloha Tours, Inc.; and the Executive Director of the Alzheimer's Association, Aloha Chapter, Inc.

Report Title:

Safe Return Day; Alzheimer's Association