Gwangju Dong-gu Launches Full-Scale 'Dementia Safety Fence' Initiative

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Jin-hyung] Dong-gu, Gwangju Metropolitan City announced on the 26th that it will actively promote the ‘Dementia Safety Fence’ project to prevent missing dementia patients in advance.

The ‘Dementia Safety Fence’ is a missing prevention system designed to find dementia patients within the golden time to prevent the problem of disappearance caused by wandering symptoms frequently experienced by dementia patients.

Dong-gu developed policies by collaborating with local residents to solve the difficulties faced by families caring for dementia patients due to the rapidly increasing elderly population and rising dementia prevalence in the community.

Through this, it won the Prime Minister’s Award in the ‘2022 National Policy Design Excellent Task’ hosted by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety and secured a special grant of 200 million KRW.

It selected Sansu 2-dong, which has the highest residence rate of elderly dementia patients in the district, as a pilot village and began full-scale operation.

They plan to produce and distribute missing response cards containing personal information of elderly dementia patients, frequently visited places, and physical descriptions, as well as dementia elderly markers (fluorescent shoelaces and tie-back bracelets) to the respective households.

Additionally, they will establish a hotline in cooperation with families of dementia patients residing in Sansu 2-dong, the police, 20 safety franchise stores, dementia partners, and the Dong administrative welfare center to activate a dementia safety network that quickly detects wandering elderly dementia patients.

Furthermore, more than 50 existing benches will be replaced with safety chairs, and dementia-friendly environments such as dementia safety paths will be created.

After an in-depth analysis of the effectiveness and resident satisfaction of the project targeting the pilot village Sansu 2-dong, Dong-gu plans to expand the dementia safety villages to 7 neighborhoods by 2024 and implement the project throughout Dong-gu starting in 2026.

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