We performed a retrospective study of the behavior of lost Dementia of Alzheimer's Type (DAT) patients who became the subjects of organized Search and Rescue efforts. We compared the DAT patients behavior to the behavior of elderly lost victims that possessed normal cognitive abilities. Data for both populations was from the Virginia Department of Emergency Services lost subject database. We found that normal elderly individuals on average traveled a greater straight line distance (2.56 km) from the Point Last Seen (PLS) than DAT patients (0.88 km). The median straight line distance from the PLS was the same for both populations (0.8 km). The mortality rate for DAT patients was 19 percent. Mortality was caused by hypothermia, dehydration, and drowning. No fatalities were found among DAT patients when they were located within 24 hours. A mortality rate of 46 percent was found for patients requiring more than 24 hours to locate. This 24 hour survivability window suggests that lost DAT patients require an immediate and aggressive search response.Keywords: Wandering, Alzheimer's Disease, Lost person behavior, missing person, Behavioral profile IntroductionOur goals are to create a preliminary behavioral profile of lost Dementia of Alzheimer's Type (DAT) patients, determine factors that impact survivability, and to create a database. Incident commanders in missing person searches rely on lost person behavior profiles and statistics for the initial deployment of resources, development of objectives, and predicting survivability. The major textbooks and field guides currently used by incident commanders combine both Alzheimer's with Elderly subjects or fail to give any numbers [1,2]. Unfortunately, search subjects suffering from Alzheimer's disease are grouped with elderly subjects or undocumented.Current estimates of Alzheimer's Disease are four million based upon an estimated 10.3% of the population over the age of 65 suffers from probable Alzheimer's disease [3]. An estimated 12-14 million Americans will be affected by the year 2040 [4]. The increase is believed to be due to an increase in awareness of the disease and an increase in the age of the U.S. population [5]. Regional demographics also will affect the percentage of Alzheimer's cases found in each state. Indeed there appears to be a higher prevalence in rural areas [6] and among those with less education [7,8]. It is this particular subset of DAT patients that often results in search and rescue incidents.Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a disease of exclusion since only after the patients' death can it be diagnosed positively. However, DAT [9] or probable AD is characterized well and can be documented with behavioral tests [10,11,12]. Wandering significantly increases with further deterioration of the DAT patient. Among mild cases of DAT, 18% of the patients wander, while in severe cases, wandering increases to 50% [13]. Other studies have made estimates of the prevalence of wanderers ranging from twelve to thirty-nine percent [14,15]. Another study reported twe...
Although additional experiments are required for the medium- and low-visibility search objects and in the dry-domain ecoregion, we suggest search planners use the following correction factors to convert field-measured Rd to an estimate of the effective sweep width (W): high-visibility W = 1.8 × Rd; medium-visibility W = 1.6 × Rd; and low-visibility W = 1.1 × Rd.
US wilderness search and rescue consumes thousands of person-hours and millions of dollars annually. Timeliness is critical: the probability of success decreases substantially after 24 hours. Although over 90% of searches are quickly resolved by standard "reflex" tasks, the remainder require and reward intensive planning. Planning begins with a probability map showing where the lost person is likely to be found. The MapScore project described here provides a way to evaluate probability maps using actual historical searches. In this work we generated probability maps the Euclidean distance tables in (Koester 2008), and using Doke's (2012) watershed model. Watershed boundaries follow high terrain and may better reflect actual barriers to travel. We also created a third model using the joint distribution using Euclidean and watershed features. On a metric where random maps score 0 and perfect maps score 1, the Euclidean distance model scored 0.78 (95%CI: 0.74-0.82, on 376 cases). The simple watershed model by itself was clearly inferior at 0.61, but the Combined model was slightly better at 0.81 (95%CI: 0.77-0.84).
In an effort to bridge the gap between classroom experience and "real world" activity, the authors developed a survey instrument for measuring the accounting professional's expectations of the newly hired employee's communication skills. After collecting the results of the survey, including responses from accounting educators and recently graduated accountants, the authors were able to conclude that some general agreement did exist about the communication needs of accountants: most lack the skill to articulate conceptual ideas. But there seems to be very little agreement on how to develop this skill in the classroom.
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