BILL NUMBER: SJR 4INTRODUCED BILL TEXT INTRODUCED BY Senators Correa and Alquist (Coauthors: Senators DeSaulnier and Maldonado) (Coauthors: Assembly Members Beall, Galgiani, Huffman, Portantino, Salas, Smyth, and Torres) MARCH 23, 2009 Relative to Alzheimer's disease. LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST SJR 4, as introduced, Correa. Alzheimer's Silver Alert program. This measure would urge the President and 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. Fiscal committee: no. WHEREAS, At least 5.2 million 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 will be able to find their way back unassisted; and WHEREAS, Half of seniors and others with dementia who wander away from home, on foot or in a car, sustain injury if 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, know 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 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.