DAPHNE, Ala. — Many people with autism, deafness, dementia and Alzheimer’s go missing; they leave family members and search teams clueless about their location.

Such situations often lead to long searches and undesirable findings — but there’s a hopeful alternative.

Project Lifesaver is a national organization that provides security for special-needs wanderers and their families.

The organization provides participants with transmitter bracelets — each of which has a tracking number, Tess Howell, Project Lifesaver’s Baldwin and Mobile County coordinator, said. When a family member informs officials that the person is missing, Baldwin County dispatch sends a search team to find them, she said.

“There are no bells or alarms that go off when a person leaves the house,” Howell said. “The caregiver just notices that they’re missing and calls us.”

It’s important to provide people with dementia and other such conditions with transmitter bracelets because their brain can change daily — which means they could be a flight risk, Howell said.

“Often the family doesn’t want to think they are at that stage,” she said. “The family will wait until they’ve wandered off once to get the bracelet.”

John Aldrich, Project Lifesaver coordinator at the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office, said the bracelet is important because people want to locate their family members in the safest and quickest way possible.

“The recent search in Daphne (for Helen Hood) is a perfect example,” he said. “She wasn’t a member of project Lifesaver; it took over eight hours and a lot of resources to find her.” Hood — a Lake Forest resident who has dementia — was found Jan. 16 at 5:10 p.m. by a Daphne Police Department search team; she’d disappeared at 5 a.m.

Project Lifesaver reports a 100 percent success rate out of 1,645 searches in the United States.

“The search time is greatly reduced when the missing person has the tracking device on rather than us having no criteria for search locations,” Aldrich said.

Bracelets are also efficient in the small amount of maintenance they require, Howell said. The battery and wrist band get changed once a month and no other maintenance is required.

The cost is $10 a month, which covers the battery and wristband, Howell said.

The wristbands cost $275, but local police departments absorb the cost, Howell said.

Members of Project Lifesaver in Baldwin County include Mercy Medical; the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office; and the Daphne, Fairhope, Foley, Robertsdale, Bay Minette and Orange Beach police departments.

Also, community members support the program with their donations, Howell said.