Smart System Introduced at Nowon-gu Dementia Safety Center Relocated to New Nest

[Seoul District News] Dementia Safety Center Relocates from Nowon-gu Office 5th Floor to Newly Built Madeul Health Center 4th-5th Floors; Facial Recognition CCTV Installed at 10 Nearby Sites, Missing Person Search System Established with Nowon Police Station

[Asia Economy Reporter Jong-il Park] Nowon-gu (Mayor Oh Seung-rok) announced that it will strengthen focused management of dementia patients in the area by relocating and expanding the Nowon-gu Dementia Safety Center to the newly built Madeul Health Center.

As aging accelerates, the number of dementia patients in South Korea is rapidly increasing. According to the "Dementia Status in South Korea" released by the Central Dementia Center last April, the estimated number of dementia patients in Nowon-gu is 8,183, the highest among the 25 autonomous districts of Seoul. This is analyzed to reflect the characteristic of the district having a high proportion of elderly population.

In response to the aging population and the increasing trend of dementia patients, the district decided to expand and relocate the Nowon-gu Dementia Safety Center to the Madeul Health Center, which will officially open in October, to provide more systematic dementia management services to the elderly and dementia patients in the area.

The center, located on the 4th and 5th floors of the newly built Madeul Health Center, covers approximately 519㎡. On the 4th floor, there are examination rooms and consultation rooms where dementia screening and detailed tests are conducted. The 5th floor houses cognitive enhancement program rooms for dementia patients, mild cognitive impairment groups, and normal elderly groups, as well as family meeting rooms and daily living activity training rooms.

When newly establishing the center, the district aimed to improve the convenience and safety of residents using the center by introducing a smart system.

First, an "automation system" was established for facility and program use. This system enables reception of dementia tests, assignment of program rooms by user, confirmation of usage time information, attendance verification for programs, and location tracking of users within the center, greatly enhancing user safety and convenience.

Additionally, to prevent the disappearance of dementia patients and elderly visitors to Madeul Health Center and the Dementia Safety Center, the district installed 10 "facial recognition CCTVs for disappearance prevention," the first of their kind nationwide, at five locations around the Nowon-gu Dementia Safety Center.

The disappearance prevention CCTV system works by inputting a photo of a missing person when a disappearance occurs, allowing it to find records of the missing person captured before the report, helping to track their movement. Once input into the system, if the person is captured by the cameras, their location is transmitted in real time to the district office control center and linked to the police.

Under normal circumstances, the system functions like a regular CCTV, and after a missing person is reported, only the police can use the search function, strictly managing it to prevent privacy infringement risks in advance.

To ensure smooth operation of the system, in August, a pre-simulation training (FTX) was conducted involving Nowon Police Station, Sanggye 1-dong Police Substation, Nowon-gu Office CCTV Control Center, and the Dementia Safety Center. When a virtual missing person passed through the facial recognition CCTV, the system detected and confirmed the location with an 83% probability immediately, and a patrol officer was dispatched within 3 minutes to secure the missing person's safety, completing the test operation.

Meanwhile, the existing Dementia Safety Center, which was located on the 5th floor of the district office, has been relocated to the 2nd floor and renamed the "Sanggye Dementia Safety Center." Due to its accessibility in the district office, it will conduct primary dementia screenings for residents and support care supplies (hygiene products for dementia patients).

Oh Seung-rok, Mayor of Nowon-gu, said, "As the importance of dementia management increases day by day, the district felt the need to respond more actively and systematically, so we expanded and relocated the Nowon-gu Dementia Safety Center. We will also create additional regional dementia safety centers during the 8th term of the elected administration to help local residents and elderly people be free from worries about dementia."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.