Silver Alerts and the Problem of Missing Adults with Dementia

In the months following the introduction of the National AMBER (America's Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response) Alert plan used to locate missing and abducted children, Silver Alert programs began to emerge. These programs use the same infrastructure and approach to find a different missing population, cognitively impaired older adults. By late 2008, 17 states had enacted Silver Alert policies, and several more planned to take advantage of National Silver Alert grant funding to initiate policies in 2009. To date, however, no research has examined the efficacy of such programs, which have widely varying parameters and criteria to initiate the alerts. In this study, we empirically examine the 17 existing state Silver Alert and related policies. The analysis includes an examination of the varieties of programs: dementia related and AMBER extension, the dates of enactment, the criteria for activation, and the process of activation. We conclude with two salient questions that emerged from the analysis. We examine these questions and make recommendations for future research, including examining whether Silver Alerts are an appropriate response to address the problem of missing adults with dementia or cognitive impairments and examining the costs and benefits of the programs including determining how best to balance efforts to keep cognitively impaired elders safe while keeping their basic human rights of autonomy and empowerment intact.