A GPS-Enabled Shoe To Track Alzheimer's Patients

From Fast Company:

This simple and dignified way to always know where someone is has applications beyond the elderly, too: small children and runners should get some, too. There are currently 5.2 million Americans with Alzheimer's, but that number is expected to balloon, with one out of eight baby boomers (10 million people) developing the disease in the coming years. Alzheimer's is incurable--though there are plenty of research initiatives trying to change that--but in the meantime, it's possible to leverage today's technology to protect seniors from some of the scariest parts of the disease. One deceptively simple solution: the GPS-enabled shoe. Developed by Aetrex Worldwide and GTX Corp, the GPS Shoe features a location-based tracking service (powered by Omnilink and the MedicAlert Foundation) that alerts caregivers via an app when an Alzheimer's patient leaves a designated "geo-fenced" area, such as the boundaries of a housing facility.

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