Alzheimer’s or senile dementia in an elderly person is incredibly scary. Not only for the one with living Alzheimer’s, but the family and friends of that person too.
Someone living with this disease progressively loses their ability to orient themselves in regards to time or spatial orientation. Meaning, they can lose track of time easily, or have no ability to understand time. They can even get lost in their own home.
This state of disorientation can even lead to those living with Alzheimer’s to walk out of their home and become lost — due to not remembering where they live or where they are.
A Japanese company was looking for a way to make sure that those with Alzheimer’s are safe and if they happen to wonder off, can be found easily. Therefore, they created a GPS tracker that can be inserted into the show of someone with Alzheimer’s.
The GPS can also be set up to set notification alerts to family and friends once the GPS moves out of a certain range.
Once the GPS travels 165ft , 328 ft, or 1640 ft outside of the ‘base’ area, the GPS device will send a notification to those that have been added to the ‘alert’ list. The notification will pin point the exact location of the GPS on a map.
The GPS shoes are currently only available in Japan and cost around $300 for a pair.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has stated that 47.5 million people in the world have senile dementia. Each year, there are new cases of this disease in 7.7 million people.
Just think how awesome this would be if they sold children’s shoes with GPS trackers in them also. It would be such an amazing safety feature!
