The GPS Shoe transmits the wearer’s location to a monitoring station. From there the wearer’s location is Google mapped and viewable on a computer, smartphone or web-enabled handheld through a secure subscriber portal.
Elopement and wandering often have tragic outcomes. If not found quickly, the afflicted will succumb to exposure, foul play or accidents. Today, nearly six million Americans are afflicted with the incurable disease placing the burden of care on nearly ten million family and professional caregivers. While there is yet no cure for the disease, there is now a path to some peace of mind.
Health 2.0
The not so 'golden' years
While there is no cure as yet for the disease -- one of its symptoms; wandering, can be managed with the aid of a unique Personal Locaton Services application of GPS technology.
We are the sum of our memories… remembrances tucked neatly into three pound cerebral packages as fragile as a potato chip with one hundred trillion incomprehensible pathways taken completely for granted until it malfunctions.
Alzheimer’s afflicts the brains of five million Americans today, but by 2050 this 21st century plague will take 15 million mothers, fathers, sons and daughters. Worse still, this disease victimizes many for every brain it actually infects – sucking the life from families and care givers.
The estimated monetary cost of $700 billion will pale by comparison to the loss of productivity and intellectual wealth which will diminish our civilization imprisoning the memories of a generation in a crib of cerebral plaque.
The progression of Alzheimer’s will cause one of every four victims to wander…
If not found quickly, they will succumb to the elements, accidents or attacks. Searching for them…hundreds of thousands of them at a time…will precipitate the collapse of our municipal and health support systems.
One possible solution is incarceration, another is sedative drugs, but one other provides care givers with the ability to manage their charges whereabouts by tracking their locations in real time with a miniaturized GPS transceiver sending signals to computers, cell phones or mobile devices… a personal location service.
An aging population with a rising incidence of chronic conditions poses a major threat to healthcare systems throughout developed countries.
Chronic illnesses are among the most costly conditions to manage draining a disproportionate amount of the systems resources. It is estimated that chronic conditions consume two-thirds of US health care expenditures and impact the lives of 90 million Americans. Contributing to the impending collapse of the current health care system is the growing and geographically dispersed population of aging boomers.
To maintain the health of the health care system practioners are migrating from an acute treatment protocol to a prevention practice. The FCC has pledged to provide $400M for building a tele-health and tele-medicine infrastructure to establish communication platforms.
Of significant importance to this shift will be the collection (Bio-monitoring) and access to personal vital signs via remote sensors (Body Sensor Network) and GPS transceivers. Continuously monitoring and maintaining a secure medical data history of weight, blood glucose levels, blood pressure, fitness activity and respiratory function are merely the initial applications of GPSPLS Health 2.0 solutions.
Miniaturized GPS transceivers will dispense medications and signal circumstances to care givers of impending health events and dispatch emergency services that will have access to real-time and historic informatics with precise location information. Well informed timely responses will reduce the impact on the system and the patient. Revenues from the transition will come from equipment sales and subscription services offset by insurers, government agencies and patient fees.
GPSPLS Elder Care White Paper:
The Technology Pavilion at the Life@50+ National AARP Event & Expo Washington, DC, September 4–6, 2008 will include a “Nana” Technology© booth, hosted by Andrew Carle, a national expert on senior care and technology, and an Assistant Professor in the College of Health and Human Services at George Mason University. Professor Carle acts as an advisor to GTX Corp, specifically targeting the development of applications for location aware devices to assist the home bound elderly who are memory impaired. He has coined the term “Nana” to describe helpful technologies for older adults and the role such technologies will play in meeting the needs of aging Baby Boomers.
