Project Lifesaver (old)
Project Lifesaver - a free program that uses radio-frequency technology to find seniors with Alzheimer’s disease who wander from their homes - will celebrate its second anniversary in Westchester County next month. See our flyer for contact information.
As of July 2010, it has located seven missing seniors and safely returned them home to their grateful and greatly relieved families.
Project Lifesaver works through bracelets with special batteries that the seniors wear on their wrists. Should the senior become lost, specially trained and equipped police officers from the Westchester County Department of Public Safety can locate them by tracking a radio signal the bracelets transmit.
The public safety department co-sponsors Project Lifesaver with the county’s Department of Senior Programs and Services (DSPS) and Project Lifesaver International.
“It’s a godsend,” said Mary Brady of Thornwood, who saw the tremendous value of Project Lifesaver first-hand about a year ago when her husband Ed, who had Alzheimer’s disease, was missing.
“It saved Ed’s life,” she said. “We couldn’t find him. He was under an evergreen tree on a neighbor’s property but you could not see him. When he was found he was all scraped and scratched.”
Mary said her husband was found in about an hour – “but I can tell you it was an eternity.”
In addition to the seven seniors found using the technology, county police have been activated to search for six other missing seniors but they all were found before the police went out.
Public Safety Commissioner George N. Longworth said Project Lifesaver is greatly benefitting Westchester residents.
“The faster we find someone, the better the odds that they will be unhurt,” Longworth said. “The faster we find someone, the sooner we can alleviate the fear and anxiety of family members. The Project Lifesaver technology has enabled us to do both of those things – find missing seniors quickly and return them safely to their loved ones. The technology has been an invaluable tool.”
DSPS Commissioner Mae Carpenter said that the program is a blessing to family caregivers who can be easily overwhelmed by their 24-hour-a-day responsibilities. Sometimes no matter how watchful they are, their loved ones may still wander off.
“The program helps both the seniors and their family caregivers,” Carpenter said. “Not only does it enable the police to locate the missing senior faster, but it helps at least to some degree to lessen the anxiety of family caregivers who are understandably distraught about the safety of their loved ones.
“It’s hard enough for families and caregivers to cope with Alzheimer’s,” she said, “Their greatest nightmare is that the elderly person will wander off and get lost or hurt and they will never see them again.”
The Alzheimer’s Association estimates that as many as 22,000 Westchester residents who are 65 or older suffer from Alzheimer’s disease. Currently, 58 seniors are enrolled in Project Lifesaver – part of the 90 who have been enrolled since it began. Seniors drop out for reasons such as death, placement in a nursing home, non-compliance or failure to comply with program rules.
Project Lifesaver is also effective because the technology enables seniors to be found quickly – often in an hour or less – compared to traditional searches where it could take hours, or even days to locate the missing person.
It also can conduct the search over a large area. In a ground search, Project Lifesaver technology can locate seniors in a one-mile radius. In an air search when the county police must use a helicopter, the radius extends to five to seven miles.
The first senior to benefit from Project Lifesaver was a woman from Yonkers with Alzheimer’s disease who made headlines when she wandered off from an exercise class at the Yonkers YMCA. Because she became lost shortly before Project Lifesaver began, she was not found for more than a day – some 30 hours later.
When she was finally located she was dripping wet from the rain and sitting on the porch of a home in Tarrytown – 13 miles away – by the couple who lived there. DSPS representatives immediately contacted the woman’s daughter, Christine Chestnut – who said she had been “frantic” while her mother was gone, and signed her mother up for Project Lifesaver right away.
Chestnut said her mother still wanders off today from time to time but the bracelet gives her some peace of mind. “I feel comfortable with it,’ Chestnut said. “I know she’ll be found.”
Emily Costanzo said her husband Peter, who suffers from Alzheimer’s, has worn a bracelet for the past year. Costanzo said the bracelet gives her peace of mind. “It’s very reassuring for me to have the band because he can be unpredictable,” Costanzo said. “One thing I like about it is it doesn’t come off. That’s very good.”
Costanzo also said that her husband wears the bracelet on his leg. “It’s less conspicuous,” she said. “If it’s on your wrist, it’s in your face.”
Participants in Project Lifesaver must live in Westchester and be dependent upon the person they live with.
The ElderServe Safe Center for Seniors, part of the Hebrew Home for the Aged at Riverdale, administers the program. Nancy D’Auria, ElderServe director, said that when caregivers apply to enroll their loved ones, they are almost always interviewed in their homes.
“This gives us the opportunity to assess the living environment for any additional services that might be appropriate,” D’Auria said. During the interview, the senior is photographed, and information is gathered for a personal profile, such as a person’s nickname, and if they speak a foreign language.
If accepted, the person receives the bracelet, which emits an automatic tracking signal. The county police maintain a database of all Project Lifesaver clients, their frequency code and other identifying information.
Caregivers are required to check the bracelet’s battery every day to ensure it is working, and every 30 days must have the battery changed at sites throughout the county.
The father of Susan Hamilton of South Salem had been enrolled in Project Lifesaver since November 2008. She recently returned the bracelet along with a letter of appreciation to the Project Lifesaver coordinators because her father is moving into the “memory unit” of a senior community in Connecticut.
She wrote about how much her family valued Project Lifesaver - especially when her father wandered away last year on Thanksgiving Day. The county police had started their search and fortunately he was located as daylight began to fade.
“My father was found approximately three hours after being reported missing,” Ms. Hamilton wrote. “He was cold, tired and upset, but unhurt. He had apparently wandered into, and fallen in the wooded area of a neighbor’s back yard at the far end of the street. His safe return gave new meaning to Thanksgiving Day for my family.”
For more information about Project Lifesaver, contact Melody Keel at the ElderServe Safe Center for Seniors at (914) 368-5506 or send an e-mail to