[Asia Economy (Hongseong) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] The number of missing elderly dementia patients in the Chungnam region is increasing.
According to the Chungnam Fire Headquarters on the 25th, the number of missing dementia elderly reports received by the 119 Comprehensive Situation Room was 35 in 2017, 49 in 2018, 66 in 2019, 114 in 2020, and 99 as of last August.
The monthly average number of missing dementia elderly reports surged from 2.9 in 2017 to 12.4 as of last August.
Among the 279 missing reports received from 2019 to the end of last August, 3 are still missing, and 7 have been confirmed deceased.
The monthly missing rate was highest in August at 12.9% and lowest in November at 3.9%. Additionally, the time frame for most disappearances was between 6 PM and midnight, accounting for 42.9% of the total.
Of the 279 missing persons since 2019, 215 were dementia patients residing in rural and suburban areas. By city and county, the distribution was Gongju 12.8%, Taean 11%, Nonsan 10.5%, and Buyeo 9.1%.
The locations where missing dementia elderly were mainly found were roads at 29.7%, rice fields or farmland at 20.3%, neighbors' houses at 17.4%, hillsides at 11.6%, and around their homes at 9.8%.
Based on the distance from their residence to the place of discovery, 41.7% were found within 1 km, followed by over 5 km at 20.6%, 1?2 km at 16.1%, 2?3 km at 13.1%, 3?4 km at 3%, and 4?5 km at 5.5%.
The Fire Headquarters plans to conduct a detailed analysis based on this basic data to establish the optimal search techniques for locating missing dementia elderly.
This analysis will examine the impact of factors such as the distance from the missing dementia elderly’s residence to the discovery location, season, time of day, search range, and methods on survival. Through this, they aim to identify the appropriate equipment and personnel scale suited to the missing area and type, and establish an immediate deployment system in cooperation with related organizations.
A Fire Headquarters official stated, “As the elderly population in the region increases, the number of missing dementia elderly cases is also rising. The Fire Headquarters will strive to develop search techniques and cooperative systems with related organizations to quickly locate and rescue missing dementia elderly once reports are received.”
Meanwhile, the proportion of elderly aged 65 and over residing in Chungnam (relative to the total population) increased from 17.1% (362,946 people) in 2017, 17.5% (372,515 people) in 2018, 18.2% (386,674 people) in 2019, to 19.1% (405,188 people) in 2020.
Along with this, the number of registered dementia patients also rose from 24,994 in 2018, 29,883 in 2019, 32,066 in 2020, to 33,910 as of August this year.
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