[Gayle]

If you've experienced the sheer panic of 'losing' an elderly person (or a younger person with alzheimers for that matter) because they've left the house and no one knows where they are then you'll understand the severity of it. I don't think this article means tagging all old people, just vulnerable ones who are suffering some sort of mental impairment.

I've seen it happen a few times - one old lady left her house without a coat on in winter and didn't take her keys with her. The neighbours alerted the family when they saw her leaving but by the time the family had got there ten minutes later she was nowhere to be seen. They set off looking for her and eventually found her, extremely cold in the local park - she'd got lost and couldn't find her way home.

Another, who lived with her husband, let herself out of her house late at night whilst he was in the kitchen and she tried to walk all the way across Blackburn in her nighty to the house she lived in when she was a child.