Warwick signs on with site designed to help find missing
2:48 PM Wed, Oct 07, 2009 | Permalink
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By Barbara Polichetti WARWICK, RI -- The scenario is all too familiar for families who have a loved one suffering from Alzheimer's or other cognitive impairment. They come home after running a brief errand and find that their mother or father is not safely nestled in an arm chair in front the television where they were left. It's cold out and their overcoat is hung neatly in the closet. Are they taking a "stroll" through the neighborhood? Are they trying to get back to the house they grew up in? Or did a cousin come by and take them out for a quick lunch? Almost any scenario is possible and thus begins a frantic drill as police are called and families try to give authorities as much information as possible while also calling everyone they can think of. Nothing will ever completely take the chill out of discovering that an impaired loved one has wandered away from home, but the search process and chance of finding them will be better with a new information database called "MissingPatient.com". On Wednesday, Mayor Scott Avedisian announced that Warwick will be the first community in the state to partner with the free Internet service and the staff at its Pilgrim Senior Center will help individuals and their families with the registration process. Also as part of the partnership Warwick police officers will be trained in all the features and information provided by MissingPatient.com and Major Michael J. Babula said he is confident that it will help the police as they respond to these heartbreaking and all-too-common calls. While the city's senior center, located on Pilgrim Parkway will probably be the easiest place where people can make an appointment for help with the free registration, Avedisian and Babula said that the Warwick police department will also help with the registration process at its headquarters. Officials from MissingPatient.com said Warwick is the first community in the state to officially partner with the service and they called on other municipalities to follow suit. People can also register directly through the Web site --- www.missingpatient.com --- but the senior center will help my taking pictures and asking caretakers pertinent questions to make sure as much data as possible is entered into the network. Founded last year by Rhode Islander Timothy Holmgren, the company is based in Westerly and currently has more than 1,000 registered clients although he said the number is steadily growing. In response to questions from the audience at Warwick's Pilgrim Senior Center Wednesday, Holmgren stressed that all data is confidential, accessible only to the police or other authorized personnel. Also, he said, in the invent that a public search is needed for a person or it is necessary to post some information about a missing person on the company's Web site, that decision is made by law enforcement officials and family members. The service is free and Holmgren said it will remain so for the foreseeable future although there are some features in the works that would require a subscription. An example, he said, is a product that would allow families to have a MissingPatient.com locator put in the car of a family member who is able to drive put might have a tendency to wander off track due to Alzheimer's, autism or other cognitive impairment.
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