Should dementia sufferers be 'tagged'.

[algy]

Sussex Police says GPS tags to track dementia patients would be 'very cost-effective' and cut anxiety for family members.

 

Sussex Police have bought 15 GPS tags in a bid to save money searching for pensioners who often go missing.

Chief Inspector Tanya Jones told the newspaper: "The GPS will be very cost-effective to the police. It will reduce anxiety for the family and really reduce the police time spent on this issue."

But Dot Gibson, general secretary of the National Pensioners Convention, described the policy as "barbaric".

 

There are currently 800,000 people with dementia in the UK. A number of local authorities are already using similar devices to track sufferers, but this is believed to be the first time a police force has taken on such a scheme.

 

No Jokes Please.

algy.

[Evil Sid]

How can Dot Gibson say it is barbaric. Surely it is better to be able to locate a dementia suffer quickly rather than have police and others wandering around,often with a vague description of the person in the hope that they may find them eventually.

 

Having had a mother in law who suffered from dementia I know what it is like to have to wander round even a small shopping area wondering where she had got to and hoping that she had not gone out of the shop and elsewhere.

 

I watched the report on tv about it last night and thought that it was a great idea. one phone call to a centre and ten minutes or less later they could tell you to the nearest metre where the person was. The cost to the police would be about £400 a month (not sure if that is for each person or not) but even so a small price to pay to ensure somebody's safety.

 

Some say that it would be demeaning to the people tagged and that they would be stigmatised as being criminals. In my experience most would probably not even notice the tag let alone know what it was for especially in the later stages when the memory is just  hit and miss.

 

Experience with the mother in law has taught me this. Many the time she has recognised me as somebody she knew but then asked her own daughter who she was and who she was married to. I did sometimes wonder though if she was having her own little joke about that as she did have a very wicked sense of humour at times.

[wolfie]

Can't imagine Mark and Carol Thatcher being too pleased about their mother being tagged.

 

It seems that the evil one had dementia and was unable to remember many of her great achievements.

Funnily enough, I couldn't remember any either.

[Nick Tessla]

it gives reassurance to the relatives and , in moments of clarity, to the individuals concerned - as well as having financial advantages - sounds like a winner all round.

 

 

Crafty german solution to one particular problem

 

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2071319/Fake-bus-stop-keeps-Alzheimers-patients-from-wandering-off.html

[Freeborn John]

Just last winter an elderly person in my area died, presumably of cold, after wandering out of the house in nightclothes, I wonder what the general secretary of the National Pensioners Convention has got to say about that.

[Lt Kije]

I think it's a good idea

[algy]

Perhaps a company similar to vehicle tracker could produce a tracker that could be implanted, under sedation of course, not only to dementure sufferers but young children could also be 'chipped' (no jokes please), it may have assisted the Portugese police in tracing Madeleine McCann.

[Nick Tessla]

Perhaps a company similar to vehicle tracker could produce a tracker that could be implanted, under sedation of course, not only to dementure sufferers but young children could also be 'chipped' (no jokes please), it may have assisted the Portugese police in tracing Madeleine McCann.

 

The device as used seems sensible in a fairly narrow set of circumstances - what you're proposing is, in my opinion, over the top. 

 

 

Indeed such  device could lead to parents seeing the tracker as being a virtual nanny and neglecting basic parental vigilance. Not much comfort if they do so and the chip just makes it easier for the Police to find a corpse.

[wolfie]

Why not go the whole hog and chip everyone, then if anyone commits a crime the police will know where they are hiding.

We could have found Osama in next to no time. ............ It is May the first not April isn't it?  

[asperity]

I think the day that happens is sooner than you may think Wolfie and it won't be voluntary. It will be done in the name of "National Security" and "for our own good". Then they will have us where they want us, and will be able to check as well.

[Davy51]

Are they being produced by the bloke who  designed the dodgy bomb finding device ?

[Bill]

The idea that some kind of implanted chip can locate people is more science fiction than science fact. Sure they use micro electronics in medical applications where the patient can even swallow a video camera but the signals from such tiny devices only travels a far enough to be detectable at the bedside. Mobile tagging devices are bulky affairs because they’re effectively just a mobile phone without the screen and keypad. 

 

Good idea though and I wish such a thing could have been available when my mother in law was alive and suffering from dementia. She was eighty and could hardly walk much more than a few yards without help and yet she managed to go walkabouts several times ending up over a mile away. 

 

Bill