Slashdot Mirror
GPS Shoes For Alzheimer's Patients
A shoe-maker, Aetrex Worldwide, and GTX Corp, a company that makes miniaturized Global Positioning Satellite tracking and location-transmitting devices, are teaming up to make shoes for people suffering from Alzheimer's Disease. "The technology will provide the location of the individual wearing the shoes within 9m (30 feet), anywhere on the planet. Sixty per cent of individuals afflicted with Alzheimer's Disease will be involved in a 'critical wandering incident' at least once during the progression of the disease — many more than once," said Andrew Carle, an assistant professor at George Mason University who served as an advisor on the project. Not only will this technology allow a caretaker to find a loved one with a click of a mouse, but the shoes are more humanizing than a bell hung around the neck.
Like they'll remember to put on their shoes...
rewriting history since 2109
in Nakatomi Plaza. If you're inside when it's taken over by terrorists, make sure you take off your shoes so they can't track you.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
wandering incident?! who was the marketing genius that made it sound like a particle physics event??
Good people go to bed earlier.
It would be helpful for the patient to be able to use the shoe GPS themselves. My relatives with Alzheimers often forget where they are or where they are going, or how to get there. A small screen similar to car GPS systems could use the shoe to help the patients find their way around. On a different note, where can I get one of these for my sister?
#Computers do not appreciate sarcasm
I was wondering if I'd watered the plants or not.
And I don't know where I am...
You can't take the sky from me...
This technology will go much farther than intended...
Parents who want to track "problem" children
Husband/Wife who wants to know where you really were last night
And for the random person who really wants to know how lost he got himself...
This technology won't become ubiquitous, but it'll certainly be fun to abuse.
There are no perfect answers, only the right questions. More questions at http://foresightandhindsight.blogspot.com/
Of course they could always take their shoes off. Wouldn't it be much better to prevent them from wandering off in the first place? I know of a great piece of technology that quite effectively keeps them where they can be found. It's called a "leash", and it works pretty well -- at least on my dog! Alzheimer's patients would even be much easier than my dog to train not to wrap it around posts, too!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Wearable electronics is pants
GPS shoes could track... anyone wearing the shoes. Wandering children, suspicious spouses, prisoners, whomever you want.
Am I missing something, or is this story less "new tech" and more "we finally found a relatively non-controversial market." Congrats for the shareholders, but hardly newsworthy.
As long as you can get them to put on and keep on their shoes, this will work great. Might work even better if implanted into their ankle bracelet... as long as they don't ask a kind stranger for a pair of scissors to cut it off.
Personally I find this solution to be ingenious and hilarious at the same time.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
How about this: We modify Grandma's shoes with a Sharpie to say "My home number is 555-1234" (or whatever for the nursing home). I have a hard time believing that the marker idea isn't better than a shoe that will likely cost hundreds to thousands of dollars ( old people often need custom orthopedics)and a cellular/GPRS/SMS/whatever subscritpion to report the information. Both solutions assume that the altzheimer's patient will remember to put their shoes on before they go walking...
The technology will provide the location of the individual wearing the shoes within 9m (30 feet), anywhere on the planet.
Just as long as they are not in a tunnel, inside a large building, in a canyon, or have any other obstacles around them that block signal from the GPS or block the signal that this device transmits, of course! Why do marketers continue to insist that GPS is some kind of magic technology that works everywhere, and ignore the limitations of technology? This probably won't even work inside some of the nursing homes where Alzheimer's patients normally reside!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
...but the satellites that make up GPS are pretty outdated and falling apart. Unless someone forks over the money for new satellites we can say goodbye to GPS in a year or two.
And for those adventurous Alzheimer patients who want a 'critical wandering incident' Achme is now offering tinfoil shoe coverings.
--Achme Sales Rep.
Plus, of course, the obvious observation for Alzheimer's sufferers - will they remember their shoes contain GPS locators?
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
A device for forcing Alzheimer's patients to keep their shoes on.
Just week or two ago there was a story on slashdot about some parent whose son had taken the wrong bus home from school and got lost so he asked slashdot ways to track his child with GPS...
So I belive that what you described will happen very soon.
I don't think it ocured to them that many alzheimer and dementia patients like to strip down to their shiny birthday suits. Last I checked, shiny birthday suits don't generally include shoes.
Not sure if it would work. A lot of alzheimer patients so their wandering barefooted. They forget they need shoes!!!
This probably won't even work inside some of the nursing homes where Alzheimer's patients normally reside!
This is for patients who wander off due to their diminished mental capacity. If they are inside the nursing home, they haven't wandered off and tracking isn't needed.
Edith Keeler Must Die
Which was a plot element in the animated movie Harvie Krumpet from 2003.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
It has an occasional use but for the price of a couple of pairs of shoes (and don't forget the recurring monitoring fees/costs) there's a much easier solution which has been highly effective.
[guy #1]: Looks like grandpa has wandered off again. Check the GeriatriFinder3000.com website to see where he's gone to.
[guy #2]: Yeah, sure thing.
[guy #2]: It looks like he's located off of 17th near bordello st.
[guy #2]: I don't get why his locater dot is vibrating erratically on the screen like that, though. Strange.
[guy #1]: Let me see that...
[guy #2]: Say, isn't 17th & bordello right in the middle of the brothel district?
[guy #1]: ?!?!!
[guy #2]: I'm sure it's only coincidental...
This is a huge legal liability and invasion of privacy. You would have to keep the presence of the GPS feature hidden from the patient. Alzheimer's patients that do run away often experience paranoia. If they knew about the tracking device, they'd deliberately take off the shoes. They're not stupid, they're brain damaged. My mother was quite crafty for a while there, and when she got mean-spirited, you really needed to watch your step. If she had run, we'd probably not have found her in time. So, to be effective, this has to be involuntary. My mother is dead now, but there is no way I would ever "tag" her like this. What an indignity to have Alzheimer's in the first place. I'll be damned if I'm going to heap on another one with a wildlife tracking mechanism. We should just say no, with our lack of dollars for these jerks.
-Somebody stole this sig.
Lister: Sometimes, I think it's cruel giving machines a personality. My mate Petersen once bought a pair of shoes with Artificial Intelligence. 'Smart Shoes' they were called. It was a neat idea. No matter how blind drunk you were, they could always get you home. But he got rattled one night in Oslo and woke up the next morning in Burma. You see, his shoes got bored going from his local to his flat. They wanted to see the world, you know. He had a hell of a job getting rid of them. No matter who he sold them to, they'd show up again the next day. He tried to shut them out, but they just kicked the door down.
Rimmer: Is this true?
Lister: Yeah. The last thing I heard, they sort of... robbed a car and drove it into a canal. They couldn't steer, you see.
Rimmer: Really?
Lister: Yeah. Petersen was really, really blown away about it. He went to see a priest. The priest told him... he said it was alright and all that, when shoes are happy that they'd get into heaven. You see, it turns out shoes have 'soles'.
Rimmer: Ah, what a sad story. Wait a minute.
[Thinks for a minute]
Rimmer: How did they open the car door?
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
Aren't there GPS child trackers already available? If you were worried about an Alzheimer's patient, couldn't you just strap one of those to the person's wrist? I presume you can get them with bands that prevent easy removal, or could retrofit one.
And the effort is appreciated, but my grandfather-in-law is in his latter stages of the disease, and he always wanders off without his shoes, different peoples' glasses, without a shirt. Its incredibly dangerous in the winter months here.
I'm afraid I believe this idea will not catch hold.
Hi, I Boris. Hear fix bear, yes?
Dude, where's my shoe?!
If I ever lose my mind like that, just let me die.
So, assuming batteries so these people aren't dragging around a long extension cord, how are you going to get someone that doesn't know where they are etc. to remember and charge the batteries every night?
a simple way for me to find my shoes in the morning. why didn't I think of this before?
This brings up a great point, you see...uh...I forgot what I was going to say.
A wise man once said, "Where is my other quotation mark?
Less obvious than a bell though probably not "more humanizing." The loss of liberties has historically started with the powerless. Prisoners, the sick, the mentally ill. Then the military and the working class people. You're next.
I'm going to lie down for a nap now. I think I'll take my shoes off.
Four hours later. I 'm going to visit the son and the kids.
Hi , son! How you been?
Son: Dad , why the bloody feet.
Dad: I'd walk 10 miles to see you , son!
Dumb. Very F*&king dumb !!
Speaking of terrorists...
This should get interesting for the Alzheimer's patients when they try to get on a plane and the TSA thinks they are wearing shoe bombs.
And can you imagine the poor Alzheimer's patient in the security isolation room trying to explain what's with the electronics in the shoe?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Another technique I've heard of is painting a big black rectangle in front of the exit doors - like a big pit.
The patients will not cross it, but everybody else will walk right over it.
I've had the misfortune of watching a loved one descend through the hell that is Alzheimer's, and watched what that did to rest of the family. To the various humor-impaired slashbots: it's about as funny as having your testicles sucked out of your scrotum with a shopvac - that is, hilarious in the abstract, until you have to experience it personally.
www.eFax.com are spammers
n/t
0 = 1 + e^(Alt something)
...but the satellites that make up GPS are pretty outdated and falling apart. Unless someone forks over the money for new satellites we can say goodbye to GPS in a year or two.
That's overstating the case.
Some of the satellites are getting old and may break down before replacements are installed. Maybe. If they do the resolution of the system may intermittently drop or the system may intermittently fail in some areas when too few working satellites are currently in view. But it will be a "goes out temporarily, occasionally" situation, as others come by in their orbits and things start working well again.
GPS (especially differential GPS, with ground-based correction transmitters) is currently used for a lot of important stuff - including navigating cargo ships into ports in the fog. If/when it starts to get occasionally flakey there will be a lot of constituency pushing for it to be fixed up before more satellites go out and the flaked-out periods become more common. Especially since some of the alternatives have been decommissioned due to GPS doing a better job.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
My grandmother spend the last year of her life in assisted living. Her first night in the facility, at 0030, she escaped.
The outside doors were equipped with electromagnetic locks to keep the residents from escaping, however, to comply with life safety codes, leaning on a door for 30 seconds continuously would sound an exit alarm and release the lock.
She figured that out. The staff heard the alarm and stopped her about 50 feet out the door. She repeated it the next night. Her room windows were locked with bayonet pins, however, most single-hung windows require more strength to open than most Alzheimer's patients could probably apply to lifting a window.
When she lived at home, she wandered out of the house and made it a whole block--she walked to the police station "looking for her father", they called Grandpa, and he went to get her.
Following her doctor prescription for Alzheimer, grandma started walking at 62, slowly first, then faster and faster.
Now she's 97 and we don't have the slightest idea where she is...
I also want Bluetooth, IPOD connectivity, and a DVD player. Until then, I'm sticking with my boots with the 8-track built in the left one and a compass in the right.
"You can't really dust for vomit" --Nigel Tufnel
I did a bunch of work for a dot-com startup in the early 2000s focusing on vehicle-tracking applications. I have a daughter with Down syndrome; Downs kids tend to wander too, so we looked at this issue quite hard. The good news: the technology is pretty straightforward. The bad news: that's about the only good news.
Batteries
A GPS chipset enables a controller embedded in the shoes (or on a device strapped to the person) to know where it is. The second half of the problem is to transmit your location to somebody else. The simplest and cheapest approach is sending the data via the cell phone system--eight years ago we were using the digital control channels of the AMPS (analog) cell system; today you'd use G3. But think of the problems you have keeping your cell phone charged--how often would you recharge the batteries in your patient's (or your child's) shoes?
GPS
GPS is a really cool technology--but it is frequently viewed as the high-tech cure for what ails ya. It is not perfect. In particular, GPS depends upon an extremely weak signal--the GPS chipsets use DSPs to dig the signal out of the ether. GPS chipsets lose "lock" all the time. If the patient is wandering around outside in plain sight, his GPS coordinates are going to be accurate. But when the chipset loses "lock" on the satellites, tracking devices will continue to report the last known good position. This can be disastrous: the patient wanders from a nursing facility out onto the public street--and gets on a bus. Inside that nice, big aluminum box he can ride all the way downtown--and his GPS-enabled sneakers will continue to report that he's out in the nursing home parking lot.
There's a serious challenge to solving problems with technology--you also have to make sure that the people who depend upon that technology know (and act on the knowledge) that it must be maintained, or it will fail. Consider, for just a moment, how many people die of smoke inhalation every year even though they have smoke detectors in their homes. But they didn't change the batteries....
There's a much smarter solution
As I mentioned above, I looked at this issue long and hard with a dot-com startup eight years ago. As we looked at it, we found a substantially better solution than GPS. Project Lifesaver is a not-for-profit organization started in Chesapeake, Virginia that has developed a simple, effective solution targeted at Alzheimers patients, Downs kids, and other "wanderers." The patient has a small bracelet (like a hospital bracelet) attached to his or her wrist: once per minute the bracelet broadcasts a serial value on a digital (i.e. low-power) frequency. If/when a patient goes missing, the people responsible for the patient call the police or the sheriff's office. The cops arrive with two directional antennas tuned to the frequency: they go off in different directions, do a little bit of trigonometry, and Grandpa is back in the facility in less than ten minutes.
The Project Lifesaver solution is not perfect. They have the same battery issue that the "GPS sneakers" approach has (the GPS sneakers approach has been tried again, and again, and again). They also will only work with local law enforcement agencies--in our county the @##$%#^^# sheriff cannot be bothered. They have had a lot of success with local service clubs funding the cost of the bracelets, and (more important) paying for and replacing the batteries.
The GPS sneakers thing sounds like cool technology. Using differential antennas and good ol' trig is much more effective. My daughter still wanders off occasionally (and we live adjacent to a state park)--I wish we could take advantage of the Project Lifesaver program here.
Exactly, my grandma who was Alzheimer's was notorious for doing just that walking around the assisted living facility in nothing but her underwear, tough deal Alzheimer's is...
---
...in bed
I thought the problem was when she was walking around.
The good, the evil and the vacuum tubes.
Humanity, you fail at it.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
About 7 years ago a friend and I were driving down the road on our way to a late night bite at Denny's. It was 2AM and we drove by a person that I instantly recognized... it was my 2nd Uncle who had Alzheimers. We got out of the car and followed him on foot while calling his wife. It turns out he had walked 2 miles from his house and his she didn't even know he was gone. When she got there she asked him where he was going. He said, "back to our house." He was referring to his old house which was about 20 miles away.
Unfortunately, he has since passed away but a device like this could have really come in handy if they knew he was missing.
Just what I need, GPS navigation for my shoes.
Turn left in .01 miles...
/^([Ss]ame [Bb]at (time, |channel.)){2}$/