POLICE are preparing a database of the details dementia patients to help track them if they go missing.

As revealed by The Herald in March, a pilot scheme has been launched with officers working with nursing homes, GPs and families of new patients to compile a list of their old addresses, favourite haunts and walking spots.

It is hoped that this will allow them to respond quickly in the event of a disappearance.

There are estimated to be about 90,000 people in Scotland living with dementia. Research suggests that at some point 40 per cent of them will go missing.

The file on dementia patients will not be kept by police but will be held by family or a nursing home in an agreed place.

The pilot is operating in seven council areas, and also involves looking at ways to prevent the person going missing in the first place by identifying triggers which might unsettle them and result in them trying to leave their home.

Police Scotland now plans to roll the pilot out across the country.

Supt Jim Royan, who is in charge of the pilot protocol, said: "The most important thing is that it's not about preventing someone enjoying the same freedoms of life as they've always enjoyed.

"But if we can do something, if we can collect information that allows us to respond more quickly that's a good help.

"It also increases the care-providers level of vigilance through early identification and risk assessment."

Jim Pearson, of Alzheimers Scotland, said he welcomed the move but that it needed to be used with the consent of patients.

He said: "It's an opportunity for family members or staff who work in care homes to put together a picture of that person and gather some information about that person, the places they lived before, the places they might go if they go missing.

"It means that information is already there and exists so if that person does go missing, the police aren't wasting precious time."

He added: "We know that the nature of the illness means they are potentially more at risk of going missing.

"They are more likely, perhaps, to become disorientated or stressed or anxious when out of doors.

"Maybe they had intended to go somewhere - an address they had lived at before or a workplace - and actually find the environment has changed and they become disorientated and lost.

"People with dementia are more at risk of going missing and because they are vulnerable are more at risk of coming to some harm."