LA County Aging and Disability Department offers smartwatch to locate wandering people

Los Angeles city leaders celebrated LA Found Day on October 15 and introduced a new tool for the community to find people who go missing.

Inspired by a tragic situation, the LA Found Program was established in 2018, when the remains of Manhattan Beach resident Nancy Paulikas were found, two years after the 55-year-old with early-onset Alzheimer's disease wandered off.

Her husband, Kirk Moody, spearheaded the search for his wife for 26 months. Moody's efforts led to the creation of a county task force called "Bring Our Loved Ones Home," to take on the problem of wandering.

At Wednesday's event, Supervisor Janice Hahn said the new tool, a smartwatch, is available to the community. 

She noted that more than 1,800 trackable lifesaver bracelets have already been distributed through the LA Found Program, an offshoot of the "Bring Our Loved Ones Home" task force. These bracelets have reunited 29 people with their families or caregivers. 

When activated, the bracelets send out trackable radio waves, and the LA Sheriff's Department is able to respond and locate.

"Using that simple technology, our sheriff deputies have located dozens of people who have gone missing," Hahn said.

"Today, we are taking another step forward. We're introducing the Theora Care GPS  smartwatch -- a new option that provides caregivers real-time location tracking, geofencing alerts, and even a little red SOS button."

The watch is linked to a caregiver's phone through an app, and is intended to assist in locating wandering individuals affected by dementia, Alzheimer's, and autism.

For more information on LA Found, call (833) 569-7651 or visit ad.lacounty.gov/lafound.