Montreal police have confirmed that the body found near the Hippodrome de Montreal Friday night was that of Maria del Carmen Serrano.
Serrano, 73, suffered from Alzheimer's Disease and had left her Parc Extension home last Tuesday to visit a friend. When she didn't return home, her son phoned police.
The woman died of exposure.
Dr. Serge Gauthier of the McGill Centre for Aging said Serrano's death may have been caused by a break from her routine.
"If you follow a routine track, sometimes with your dog, you can go out safely, but there are individuals who could get distracted and go off to a new road and they could get lost," he said.
For the past 15 years, experts at the Montreal Alzheimer's Society have encouraged patients to register with the Safely Home program. It provides patients with two ID cards and a bracelet, similar to a MedicAlert bracelet, they can wear at all times.
"On the back of the bracelet it says their first name - so it's confidential. There's an ID number and all levels of police, whether it's local police, provincial, and RCMP, have access to a database that can then identify the person," explained Isabelle Abdel-Sayed of the Montreal Alzheimer's Society.
Registration for the program costs $35.
Some 5,000 of Quebec's 105,000 Alzheimer's sufferers is registered with the Safe Home program, including 1,700 in Montreal; Serrano was not one of them.
In addition to the program, Gauthier recommends Alhzeimer's patients carry a GPS-equipped cellphone to find them if they get lost.
Further, he recommends everyone be vigilant of confused or lost people.
"Not a lot of people feel comfortable stopping someone and saying, 'Are you okay?'" he said. "But if that person looks like they're looking for directions perhaps any of us should gently ask, 'Do you need help?'"
