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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.
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.
Critical means "Having the Potential to become Disastrous." And when Alzheimer's patients wander, it has just that potential. People who suffer from the condition can become easily lost, confused, and aren't likely to seek out help. In some cases, they can be belligerent, and combative toward people who do want to help. This puts them in direct danger. A humane way of tracking them in the event of these incidents helps empower people, and might allow people to keep lovedones with the condition at home, as opposed to in assisted care where oversight is tighter and they're less liable to wander off and get in this danger. "Critical Wandering Incident" is a good way to describe it, in my opinion.
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.
Not much help for people searching for her is that? Nor is it much help for those who find her since the shoe is an extremely unlikely place to look for a phone number or other form of ID.
If they already need orthopedic shoes, then adding a GPS to them won't increase the cost much.
Ambulatory patients are generally dressed and undressed by the caregiver. The patient has no need to remember to put the shoes on. (At night, when the shoes aren't being worn, a wanderer in night clothes is far more likely to be noticed by security while leaving, or wandering down the street.)