Senate Joint Resolution
No. 4
CHAPTER 87
Relative to Alzheimer’s disease.
[
Filed with
Secretary of State
August 27, 2009.
]
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
SJR 4, Correa.
Alzheimer’s Silver Alert program.
This measure would urge the President and the Congress of the United States to act to establish a federally controlled Alzheimer’s Silver Alert program to locate missing persons with dementia and establish a federal grant program to aid states in establishing local Silver Alert programs.
Digest Key
Fiscal Committee:
NO WHEREAS, At least 5,200,000 Americans suffer from Alzheimer’s disease, a progressive and fatal brain disease that causes loss of memory and verbal, sensory, and other cognitive functions; and
WHEREAS, Sixty percent of patients with Alzheimer’s disease will wander away from home and only 4 percent of those patients will be able to find their way back home without assistance; and
WHEREAS, Half of seniors and others with dementia who wander away from home, on foot or in a car, sustain injury if they are not found within 24 hours; and
WHEREAS, The senior population has been steadily growing and the aging of the baby boomer generation will likely increase the number of persons suffering from dementia, thereby increasing the number of persons injured or killed while wandering; and
WHEREAS, A new type of missing persons program, known as Silver Alert, has been developed and adopted by several states and has resulted in the safe return of a majority of persons with dementia reported missing; and
WHEREAS, Legislators from other states are discussing proposals for Silver Alert programs for introduction in 2009; and
WHEREAS, A nationally coordinated program, similar to the Amber Alert program for missing children, could promote best practices, based on ideas and experiences of existing states’ Silver Alert programs, and spread those best practices to other states, resulting in a national program incorporating the media and law enforcement; now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the Senate and the Assembly of the State of California, jointly, That the Legislature urges the President and the Congress of the United States to act to establish a federally controlled Alzheimer’s Silver Alert program to locate missing persons with dementia and establish a federal grant program to aid states in establishing local Silver Alert programs; and be it further
Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate transmit copies of this resolution to the President and Vice President of the United States, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Majority Leader of the Senate, and each Senator and Representative from California in the Congress of the United States.