GPS-fitted shoe helps track Alzheimer's patients

(Credit: GTX)

GPS-equipped footwear isn't new. But the idea of using it to track Alzheimer's patients, which shoemaker Aetrex Worldwide and GPS experts GTX are making possible, is just great.

It will be even better if an affordable version of the service can be extended to home users. Remembering how hapless a friend felt when her granddad, who was afflicted with dementia, disappeared one day, this would have saved her all that mental anguish. The entire family had been marshaled to help in the search, and it was a day later, when they were imagining the worst, that a stranger called to say he had found her grandfather wandering aimlessly. Now that her father faces the same fate, this would certainly lessen her burden as a caregiver.

The GPS transmitters have an accuracy range of 30 feet and "geo fences" can be set so that as soon as the patient leaves a predetermined zone, a Google Map alert is sent to a cell phone, home, or office computer to locate the patient.

(Source: Crave Asia via Physorg)