The Ontario government is expanding supports for people with dementia.
Resources are being provided in additional languages to help more people with Alzheimer’s disease, their families and communities prevent and respond to wandering incidents.
In partnership with the Alzheimer Society of Ontario, the province is expanding the Finding Your way program, a multicultural safety awareness campaign that helps prevent people with dementia from going missing. The program also helps families, caregivers and the community respond when incidents occur, states a news release.
“We see the number of people with dementia and the risks associated with missing incidents rising,” states Chris Dennis, interim CEO of the Alzheimer Society of Ontario, in the release. “We commend the Ontario government for recognizing the need to support people living with dementia from a culturally and linguistically diverse background, and we are thankful for their help in providing socially inclusive programs and services, such as Finding Your Way.”
The expanded program will provide safety kits in four new languages: Urdu, Tagalog, Tamil, and Arabic. Safety kits contain information to help families create personalized safety plans and tips for the community on how to help someone with dementia who may be lost.
Ontario has the most diverse senior population in the country, speaking more than 200 languages. In fact, more than 12,000 Ontarians over the age of 65 have Arabic as their first language, 7,050 have Urdu, while 10,900 and 16,520 seniors have Tamil and Tagalog respectively.
The safety kit is now available in 12 languages. The other available languages are Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, English, French, Cantonese, Mandarin, and Punjabi.
For more information, visit www.ontario.ca/seniors.
