By Anna Fleet
Gloria has dementia, but she has always loved taking long, independent walks around her community in British Columbia. Over time, her family began noticing moments where she’d get turned around or wander farther than expected. “There had been a couple of times where she had a very delayed return to the house,” her daughter Joyce recalls.
They tried everything. First an Apple Watch, then a GPS wearable unit with fencing alerts. None of it worked. “Terrible,” Joyce says with a laugh. “Way too tech. My dad couldn’t remember to charge it, and he couldn’t remember to put it on her. The alarm would go off, and we’d get calls from a call centre in Toronto. It just wasn’t good technology for them.”
Eventually, they turned to MedicAlert’s Safe & Found program. “Honestly, MedicAlert was our last resort,” Joyce says. “But sometimes the simplest option is the best one. At the very least, we thought, she’ll always have it on her.”
Then came September 27 — the day their worries became real.
Gloria was out shopping with her husband at Home Depot when the two became separated. She wandered across a busy parking lot and into a GAP store she used to shop in regularly. Inside, she asked people if they had seen her husband or knew where he might be.
A good Samaritan — someone who happened to work in long-term care — noticed the MedicAlert ID on Gloria’s wrist. She recognized it at once and called the number on the back.
Meanwhile, Joyce was in Alberta when her father phoned, panicked. “Being in another province, you feel helpless,” she says. “But knowing she had that bracelet on gave me a little bit of peace.”
As Joyce began calling family, MedicAlert was already working through Gloria’s Safe & Found profile. Her uncle — only 20 minutes away — received the call quickly and set out to bring Gloria home.
“What was forty minutes of absolute terror was cut so much shorter because MedicAlert acted so fast,” Joyce says. “They identified her, contacted the right people, and helped calm everything almost immediately.”
Afterward, the Return Home follow-up left a lasting impression for Joyce. “The personal check-in meant a lot,” Joyce says. “It showed they genuinely cared about my mom and what had happened.” MedicAlert staff conduct these short, supportive conversations with family or care partners after a loved one with dementia wanders to review what happened, look for possible triggers or patterns, and update their MedicAlert Health Profile to help keep them safer. These conversations also help improve MedicAlert’s Safe & Found Program, First Responder training, and future tools to prevent wandering.
Following her mom’s wandering incident, Joyce is looking ahead. She’s especially encouraged by MedicAlert’s upcoming GPS-integrated wearable. “If you can wear something, you just put it on and forget — like the bracelet — that’s brilliant,” she says. “It can’t come soon enough. And having the logo right on the device so people know what it is? That’s huge.”
Joyce says her family’s experience also highlighted the importance of awareness. “We were lucky someone recognized my mom’s ID,” she says. “But not everyone would. There needs to be more training — for First Responders and everyday people. That recognition can bring someone home.”
MedicAlert is actively fundraising to expand this training across communities in Canada.
For Gloria and her family, a simple bracelet made all the difference. “MedicAlert worked,” Joyce says plainly. “After everything else failed, it just worked.”
Are you a caregiver to an individual with a chronic health condition? Learn how MedicAlert can provide peace of mind, protection, and support at medicalert.ca/signup or call 1-800-668-1507 today.
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