Two of every three missing people last year were youths, debunking the myth that elderly patients with dementia were the bulk of the problem.
Police statistics on missing persons tabled in Parliament by Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Abela show that there were 837 reports to the police about missing persons last year.
The greatest number – 399 – were aged between 15 and 20, while 177 were under 15. Just three per cent were aged 60 and over, the figures show.
Last year, Times of Malta reported how one person is expected to go missing every day in Malta by 2025, due to an increase in mental health problems primarily associated with old age. More than a quarter of the island’s population will be aged 70 or over by then, and about 10,000 will develop acute memory loss.
Criminologist Saviour Formosa said at the time that the government was working on a pilot project to test the viability of introducing tracking technology for those diagnosed with memory loss.
He pointed out that searching for lost dementia patients who wandered off was a heavy burden on law enforcement officers and often a traumatic experience for relatives and patients alike.
A new app uses the internal GPS devices on patients’ phones
Questions sent on the outcome of the pilot project yesterday had not been replied by the time of writing. Mr Abela, replying to a question from MP Anthony Agius Decelis, said that among those who had been reported missing was an elderly person aged between 85 and 90, six between 80 and 85, two between 75 and 80 and three whose age remained unknown.
Last year, Dr Formosa's call for tracking technology was met with scepticism by Malta Dementia Society founder Charles Scerri. He feared it could lead to “abuse and stigma” and intrude too much on dementia patients’ privacy.
But this concern may have been superseded though a new app which uses the internal GPS devices on patients’ phones. The Ambient Assisted Living Buddy, developed by artificial intelligence researcher Alexiei Dingli and University of Malta student Michael Buhagiar uses mobile technology and artificial intelligence to keep tabs on dementia patients.
The app creates what is known as a geofence, a sort of digital barrier beyond which the user does not normally wander. This, according to Prof Dingli, means patients are not kept on a leash and limits the impact on their privacy.
The information Mr Abela tabled in Parliament shows while 823 of those reported missing were traced or returned home voluntarily, 14 remain missing. Some 600 of the missing were women, and 235 were men.