One of the major concerns for families with loved ones suffering from diseases like Alzheimer’s, autism spectrum disorder, and/or dementia is the problem of wandering, which can be immensely stressful for families and unfortunately often results in injury or even death for those impaired. For instance, National Autism Association data from 2009 to 2011 indicates that 91 percent of fatalities among children with autism under 14 years of age were due to accidental drowning. Wandering has understandably become a major topic of discussion in the relevant caregiver communities and in the case of autism spectrum disorder, where nearly half of parents indicated in an Interactive Autism Network study that their child with autism has wandered from home, the majority of cases we hear about involve children. However, as autism advocacy organization Autism Speaks staffer Kerry Magro recently noted, “We need to make sure we don’t see wandering as a problem only in children.”
For Alzheimer’s patients and especially members of the elderly population who suffer from dementia, the concern is even more palpable, as, societally speaking, people are more likely to identify an unattended child as being in need of assistance, whereas an elderly person is typically ignored by strangers and left to wander. Moreover, the aged bodies of the elderly are more susceptible to injury and in most cases, such injuries, which often do not heal as readily as in younger people, can pose significant/persistent impairment concerns from which an older person may never really recover. Even something as simple to the average reader as a fall can have devastating impact on the long term quality of life of an elderly person, especially if they are also afflicted with Alzheimer’s or dementia.
And yet there is still considerable stigma attached to anti-wandering jewelry and accessories, not the least of which is often from patients themselves, despite how vitally important such potentially life-saving items can be, with most patients disliking or simply refusing to wear such objects. While smartphones could theoretically solve this problem, most elderly folks either don’t have, or forget to carry a smartphone. Needless to say, the amount of constant stress the problem of wandering puts on caregivers has created a sizable market in and of itself, and the broader caregiving market has seen innovative start-ups focused on helping to address the well-being of people over 50 rake in around $1.3 billion in funding by mid-2015 alone as a direct result.
At the National Alliance for Caregiving roundtable discussion last year, the consensus was quite clear that technological innovation supporting family members and other caregivers was becoming increasingly paramount, and that we have barely scratched the surface of what might be possible in this area. Unfortunately, as illustrated in a recent article from AARP entitled Caregiving Help from Tech Breakthroughs, while many emerging products in this area may sound great on paper, the hoped-for utility and assistance they represent may not always translate readily into practice.
Luckily, some amazing devices that ably leap over the hurdle of going from idea to practice are now becoming more and more prevalent, with one such example, an ingenious “invisible GPS” offering from GTX Corp. (OTC: GTXO) known as the SmartSole®, being prominently featured as the top pick in the AARP special report article. The award winning and patented assistive recovery wearable GPS SmartSole looks and feels, for all intents and purposes, like the sort of shoe insole you might find at a local pharmacy, but the product is actually a sophisticated GPS- and cellular-enabled tracking device that allows caregivers or friends and family to monitor the location of a loved one in real-time using an intuitive and easy-to-use Smart Locator App that delivers coordinates rendered via Google Maps.
With over 100 million people currently requiring some form of care or oversight due to cognitive impairment, a figure forecast in the 2013 World Alzheimer’s Report as nearly doubling by 2050 to over 277 million, this elegant solution provides the kind of robust, always-on geo-fencing needed to ensure the safety of loved ones, as well as caregiver’s peace of mind. While wanderers may not want to wear special tracking accessories, or they may forget to take a smartphone with them, they almost never forget to wear their shoes – a factor which makes the SmartSole really stand out as an ingenious piece of design. And the company even offers a Platinum Concierge Live Operator Assistance package to consumers which takes the standard online tracking and alerts package to the next level, providing round-the-clock concierge monitoring with live operators ready to assist caregivers in locating a lost loved one.
An estimated 5.1 million Americans currently have Alzheimer’s and the vast majority are aged 65 and up, a figure set to rise 40 percent by 2025 to over 7.1 million according to the Alzheimer’s Association. With no cure in sight and an increasingly aged population to contend with, the nearly 18 billion hours of unpaid care delivered last year by friends and family of people with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia in America is only going to rise higher moving forward, meaning that the roughly $218 billion worth of contribution that this unpaid care represents will also increase. Take into consideration the physical and emotional toll such caregiving takes on unpaid friends and family, and it is no shock to hear that such caregivers experienced a collective $9.7 billion in additional personal healthcare costs last year.
Needless to say, the market for technologies like the SmartSole is both massive and growing, with no foreseeable end to such growth in sight. The importance of response time when it comes to locating wanderers is another big driving factor here, with the first half hour being the most crucial window according to experts who routinely deal with such incidents. The typical scenario that ensues once a loved one with special needs is actually identified as being lost, often involves panic and scrambling to alert others, including family, neighbors, and law enforcement. To make matters worse, in some cases the individual is eventually located within their own home, hiding under a bed or in a closet – and while this makes the ordeal less dangerous to the health of the wanderer, it is a costly, time consuming, and nerve-racking experience for caregivers and first responders.
The SmartSole brilliantly alleviates nearly all of the standard concerns associated with wandering and the product does so in a way that can even be easily shielded from the individual in question, meaning they do not have to bear the shame of needing such help, or the feeling of causing others an imposition. And for GTXO, the SmartSole is just the tip of the iceberg, as the company has a whole array of complete end-to-end IoT (internet of things) based solutions for this sort of tracking, all of it backed up by an extensive portfolio of patents, patents pending, registered trademarks, copy rights, and branded URLs.
AARP is the largest 50 and over membership organization in the country, with over 37 million members and is also one of the most powerful lobbying groups in the U.S., meaning that GTXO’s SmartSole being so prominently featured is a real coup for the company. Big news for a small company like this, which is currently pulling out all the stops to let caregivers know about its powerful, life-saving technology.
For more information on the GTX Corp family of products and services visit http://gtxcorp.com, www.gpssmartsole.com, www.trackmyworkforce.net, www.codeamberalertag.com and www.locimobile.com
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