GPS Tech Review

Presently there is just one geriatrician in the U.S. for every 5,000 seniors; about half of what there should be, according to the American Geriatrics Society.

The problem is that fewer medical students are choosing this subspecialty because treating older patients who have multiple, complex problems makes it difficult for a doctor to make a living as they require significantly more time to treat. Medicare doesn’t progressively compensate for an extended 45-minute appointment with a dementia patient. Says Dr. Bruce Robinson; “These patients require the most time and pay the worst.”

Consequently, the shortage of geriatricians is also worsening. While medical students elect other more lucrative specialties than geriatrics, the population of those over 65 is accelerating faster than ever in our nation’s history with one in every eight an Alzheimer’s victim. The American Geriatrics Society estimates that by 2030, there will be a shortage of 36,000 geriatricians in the U.S., up from 7,000 today.

Alzheimer’s disease has reached crisis proportions in the United States, with incidence, prevalence, and mortality all on the rise. Today there are now more than 5.3 million people with Alzheimer’s disease.  The Alzheimer’s Association has projected an increase of 12-14 million new cases by 2030 as there is no cure for the disease. With rising medical and assisted living costs, the burden of daily care for these ravished victims rests most often with the more than 10 million unpaid family caregivers.

These staggering statistics do not take into account the additional cost of monitoring and retrieving the 60% of the afflicted that will wander off and become lost. If not recovered within hours their fragile health will fail rendering them a mortality statistic and a significant expense for the municipality that will be called in to search for them.

 Using 2 way personal GPS Tracking technologies it will be possible in just a few months for caregivers to enjoy the 24×7 peace of mind that comes with knowing where their loved-ones are with a push of a button on a Smart Phone. While medicine cannot yet pinpoint the cure, GPS Personal Location Services technology can now pinpoint the person.

3G Smart Phones, GPS Shoe, GPS Tracking, Location Based Services March 3rd, 2010

The FDA has approved Aricept®, Namenda®, Exelon®, and Razadyne® for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease which affects 30 million people worldwide.  Presently, none of these medications prevents or stops the advance the disease itself. However, billions of dollars are being invested in new drug research. Companies like Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer and Elan are in third stage trials, but the commercial availability of their formulas remains several years away.

The disease progressively robs the patient of their cognitive minds and physically debilitates them. As the disease progresses through its fatal stages certain life threatening behaviors unique to the disease may present themselves. Research tells us that 60% of all Alzheimer’s victims may become intermittently disoriented and lose awareness of who they are and where they are. There is no warning for “wandering” and restraining the afflicted would restrict their independence and destroy personal dignity while they are still living functional lives.

 Two companies; GTX Corp and Aetrex Worldwide have partnered to produce a patented GPS enabled shoe that will soon afford caregivers with the ability to instantly locate their loved ones and know their path, direction and speed on a smart phone with the push of a button enabling speedy retrieval which will provide peace of mind to the caregiver and prevent their early demise owing to exposure from the elements.

3G Smart Phones, GPS Shoe, Location Based Services March 2nd, 2010

Joe Adcock, baseball player  Mabel Albertson, actor Dana Andrews,  actor Rudolph Bing, opera impresario James Brooks, artist Charles Bronson actor,  film director Abe Burrows,  author Carroll Campbell,  Former Republican Senator Joyce Chen, chef  Perry Como,  Singer entertainer Aaron Copland, composer Willem DeKooning, artist
James Doohan,  actor Thomas Dorsey, singer Tom Fears, professional football player and coach  Louis Feraud,  fashion designer  Arlene Francis, actor  Mike Frankovich, film producer  John Douglas French, physician  Barry Goldwater, Senator of Arizona  Rita Hayworth, actress  Raul Silva Henriquez,  Roman Catholic cardinal, human rights advocate  Charlton Heston actor and political activist  Mervyn Leroy, director  Jack Lord, actor  Ross MacDonald, author  Burgess Meredith, actor  Iris Murdoch, author  Edmond O’Brien, actor  Arthur O’Connell,  actor  Marv Owen,  baseball player  Molly Picon, actor  Otto Preminger, director  Bill Quackenbush, professional hockey player  Ronald Reagan,  40th President of USA  Harry Ritz, performer  Sugar Ray Robinson, boxer  Norman Rockwell, artist  Simon Scott, actor  Irving Shulman, screenwriter  Betty Schwartz, Olympic gold medal winner in track events  Kay Swift,composer  Alfred Van Vogt, science fiction writer   E.B. White, author  Harold Wilson, British Prime Minister.

As their minds wither, the afflicted may become disoriented and wander off forgetting who they are and where live. Searching for the missing places a great deal of stress on the caregivers, because If not found in hours they often succumb to the elements.

GTX Corp and Aetrex Worldwide will be offering a patented tracking solution that should afford all concerned with the assurance of instant and accurate GPS location.

GPS Shoe, GPS Tracking, Location Based Services February 28th, 2010

Does one’s right to privacy carry a greater weight than one’s right to life?

A recent Canadian news article raises the issue of demented patients rights to privacy over thier right to life owing to the incursion of GPS Tracking technology affording care givers knowleged of thier location should they wander.

GPS for Alzheimer’s patients?

Wed Dec. 23 2009 5:17:49 PM  ctvmontreal.ca

Montreal police are conducting a feasibility study into the costs and benefits of providing GPS tracking bracelets to Alzheimer’s patients to prevent them from becoming lost.

The study comes less than two weeks after Maria del Carmen Serrano, 73, was found dead near the Hippodrome de Montreal former race track after she wandered off from her Park Extension home days earlier. Her son, Jesus Serrano, is convinced his mother would still be alive today if she’d had a GPS tracking bracelet. He tried to order one for her a year ago, after she disappeared the first of three times.

“They told me, ‘No, in Canada you cannot use that system.’ But if it is in Canada, I would love to have had that because with that, I could find my mom in five minutes,” he said.

Montreal police expect the results of the study in the new year. If the study recommends bracelets, extensive discussions will follow on which at-risk individuals should be provided the devices, as well as whether the tracking tools would be government funded.

Lorraine Sauve, director of the Alzheimer’s Society Suroit, said aside from the GPS tracker, there are strategies for families to improve the safety of those who live with the illness.

“I think it’s a good idea, with a bit of reservation. I like the GPS system, (but) I would like it to not replace the love and care of a caregiver, or the supervision of a caregiver,” said Sauve.

At the Griffith-McConnell residence in Cote St. Luc, the most serious Alzheimer’s patients live in locked wards and have bracelets that trigger locks on doors if those at risk of wandering get too close to them. Officials there say they have reservations about the GPS device.

“My hesitation about the GPS is really around privacy rights. Every individual has the right to privacy and having somebody know where you are at any given moment really destroys that right,” said Annette Rudy at the Griffith-McConnell residence.

Still Jesus Serrano said the GPS is the best way to keep those afflicted with the disease safe.

“One hundred per cent they should have that, because I don’t want anybody to have this happen, what happened to me,” he said.

GPS Shoe, GPS Tracking, Location Based Services December 26th, 2009

The abduction of Elizabeth Smart was a depraved assault against us all. It took away the sanctuary that each of our homes was supposed to provide our loved ones. The crime so infuriated Patrick Bertagna that he spent the next seven years and millions of dollars developing the GTX Corp  technology that would afford each of us embedded GPS monitoring solutions that would discretely provide our location on a smart phone, PDA or computer. Nine months of terror could have been reduced to nine seconds, nine minutes or nine hours, but not nine years.

SALT LAKE CITY October 1st, 2009 @ 8:56pm — It was a moment six years in the making. Elizabeth Smart took the stand at U.S. District Court Thursday during a competency hearing for her accused kidnapper Brian David Mitchell.

For two hours, the 21-year-old recounted the details from the nine months she was held in captivity. [CLICK HERE to read Elizabeth Smart's entire testimony]

She testified Brian David Mitchell came into her bedroom on the night of June 5, 2002, held a knife to her throat and told her to get up quietly, or he’d kill her and her family.

She said he told her to get her shoes on. When she reached for slip-on shoes, he told her to get some tennis shoes.

3G Smart Phones, GPS Shoe, Location Based Services October 4th, 2009

The expansion of the Company’s IP portfolio and specifically in the GPS shoes category is perfect timing as the Company is currently in China working with Aetrex Worldwide, Inc., a global leader in adult ped-orthic footwear, preparing to bring to market the patented GPS enabled shoes dubbed the “Ambulator.” The GPS Shoes will afford millions of caregivers the means to instantly connect with those afflicted with Alzheimer’s that will become lost due to wondering.

 Larry Hennemen, the attorney for GTX Corp states; “each of thesepatents will include claims broadly directed to other fundamental features of our platform and products; and these reissue patents along with GTX Corp’s other utility and design patents and patents pending should provide a significant competitive advantage in GTX Corp’s technological space.”  The complete release >>>

GPS Shoe September 29th, 2009

The answer is simple; get fifty very talented people together. Then get them to spend five years miniaturizing the GPS gear, developing an intuitive interactive portal and make those solutions interface with the most popular smart phones… then use Google Premier to show the push pin location of people and assets – while reporting the bearing, speed, altitude, and current activity in real time in addition to archiving a history of activity and providing geo-fence alerts. They even found a way to put all of that into a GPS shoe that will save the lives of wandering Alzheimer’s victims. Read the why’s and where for’s from Google about GTXCorp >>

3G Smart Phones, GPS Shoe, Location Based Services September 29th, 2009

Aetrex Ambulator

Reaching a magnitude of 6 million people afflicted with the disease, Alzheimer’s poses serious lifestyle constrictions for seniors. Providing the means for caregivers to know their whereabouts returns their freedom and everyone’s piece of mind. Listen to Frank O’Connell, former CEO of Reebok, Mattel, HBO and Indian Motorcycle speak to the innovative applications of personal GPS technologies including the GPS Shoe. Hear more from Frank O’Connell

GPS Shoe, Interviews July 23rd, 2009