Caregivers Want "Silver Alert"

Ask Elaine McDuffie what it felt like when her elderly mother went missing and she'll describe the same fear parents get when they've lost a small child.

"Your heart is beating hard. You feel it almost coming out of your chest. You're in a complete state of panic. ... All the bad things pop into your head," said McDuffie of Sleepy Hollow.

McDuffie cares for her mother, Iley Henry, 79, who has Alzheimer's disease. In the past three years, Henry wandered into the streets twice, once ending up in the White Plains Hospital emergency room after a woman walking a dog found her facedown on a grassy lawn.

Henry is safe and at home with her family now, but other incidents of people with dementia have ended in severe injury - frostbite, dehydration, stroke - or death.

Some of the cases have made headlines recently, including a 73-year-old Yonkers man who went missing for days and was found this week in midtown Manhattan.

With a significant rise in Alzheimer's diagnoses projected, local advocates are looking for tools to help find missing seniors before it's too late, including a system identical to one that helps find missing children.

Silver Alert, a copy of the Amber Alert system for missing children, would help police departments communicate with each other and residents in the community when a senior wanders.

The Rockland County Legislature on Tuesday unanimously approved a countywide Silver Alert program. Legislator Bob Jackson, D-Nanuet, proposed the bill after reviewing programs in Nassau and Suffolk counties.

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Caregivers Want Alert System for Eldely