TENNESSEE, USA — Brenda Bowlin suffers from Alzheimer's disease.
In March, Brenda left her home unsupervised and walked down the block.
"She opened the door looked both ways and took off," says Brenda's daughter Kim. "She ran up on a neighbor's brother, who she flagged down and said 'I'm lost and I need to get to Bristol. My house is in Bristol.' Her house was just literally yards away."
Thankfully a neighbor was able to take her home safely.
"It's the things that go through your head like oh my gosh, what if this happened? What if that happened? People are not always in our favor,' says Kim.
Brenda is among 120,000 Tennesseans living with Alzheimer's disease, according to Alzheimer's Tennessee. She is also among the six of 10 the agency says will wander at some point during their illness.
"60% of people with a cognitive impairment will wander at some point during their disease process," says Tracey Kendall Wilson, Regional Director of Alzheimer's Tennessee.
And according to Kim Bowlin, her mother's illness is getting worse.
"It's gotten worse, the last two years. Much worse. There are weekends that I've stayed here that she felt like I was her mother the whole time," says Kim.
Alzheimer's Tennessee is working with the general assembly to pass more communication measures for the state-wide Silver Alert. The bill must pass the "Finance Ways and Means Committee" and votes by the full State House and Senate before going to Governor Bill Lee. With Governor Bill Lee’s signature, a statewide protocol would be implemented with local law enforcement agencies to help find missing citizens who have wandered due to dementia, physical impairment, or disability.
"The number of people that are affected is just continuing to escalate. And we know that within the next 10 to 15 years, it's just going to be almost unmanageable," says Wilson.
If passed, the Silver Alert Bill would task the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation with providing education, implementation and tracking. It will also create a uniform protocol across the state which officials say will significantly strengthen the Silver Alert system and provide clear instructions for local, inter-agency, and media coordination on how to respond to calls of vulnerable, missing adults who may be disoriented and incapable of finding their own way home.
A uniform protocol would also allow Tennessee to track Silver Alerts and gather data about how many are issued.
To learn more about the Silver Alert Legislation, click here.
