GTX Corp (OTCBB: GTXO), a leader in customizable, patented two-way GPS Tracking Personal Location Services (PLS) solutions with Aetrex Worldwide, Inc., a leading maker of orthotic and therapeutic shoes debuts the patented GPS tracking Smart Shoe Ambulator ® collection at the World Shoe Association Show. The Aetrex Ambulator® collection brings a durable, reliable solution for monitoring the location of the 5.3 million seniors in the US afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease or dementia. Aetrex plans to launch the shoes to coincide with the National Alzheimer Association memory walks this fall.
The Aetrex GPS-enabled shoes provide caregivers a safe, unobtrusive means to easily find those afflicted with Alzheimer’s that might wander or elope and become lost. GTX Corp’s eighteen patents and patents pending for the GPS tracking technology cover a GPS transceiver module that is placed within the shoe, a module that transmits the wearer’s location coordinates to a central monitoring station, proprietary software, cellular connectivity, the GTX Corp middleware platform and secure viewing portal. Aetrex will initially offer the shoe through their e-commerce websites www.foot.com and the www.gpsshoe.com site along with a select group of assisted living facilities.
Wireless bio-monitoring, first used in human beings for fetal heart-rate monitoring more than 30 years ago, has now become a technology for remote sensing of patients’ activity. Technical advances in miniaturization and wireless communications have enabled development of monitoring devices that can be made available for general use by individuals/patients and caregivers. Applications range from monitoring high risk patients for heart and respiratory activity and falls to sensing levels of physical activity in military, rescue, and sports personnel. The range of measurements include heart rate, pulse waveform, respiratory rate, blood oxygen saturation, tissue pCO2, exhaled carbon dioxide, physical activity, strain in orthopedic devices, intracorporal pressure, and gastrointestinal lumen visualization.
Even soldiers in the French army will have their heart rate, blood pressure and other vital signs monitored by telemetry as part of the next-gen combat suit due around 2015. The system will now include a health-status uplink so field commanders can check on the readiness status of their troops in real time.
June 30
Alzheimer’s Caregiver AlertGTX Corp, developer of the patented GPS shoe, will begin shipping devices to its licensee; Aetrex Worldwide for retail sales through its www.foot.com and GTX Corp’s www.gpsshoe.com sites. Availability is currently scheduled to coincide with the National Alzheimer Association Memory Walks this fall. Those wishing to purchase a pair of “Ambulators” should post their interest on the foot.com site for follow up email messages.
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.
From the moment the call came Berkeley Township Detective Joe Santoro had a bad feeling. At least once a week his police department helps locate a “wanderer,” the clinical name for confused elderly residents who become lost. In Ocean County, where numerous retirement communities dot the landscape, it’s a familiar 911 call that usually has a happy ending.
But for 72-year-old Julia Madsen it was different story. Though she’d been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease 18 months earlier, but she still took her walks on the beach. She gave her husband ED a quick kiss on the cheek and headed out about 7 p.m. Within hours her husband called police, but a wide search could not locate Julia. A year later, they have a list of the places Julia Madsen isn’t, but they are no closer to knowing where she is despite a $50,000 reward. Police never found a single person who saw her on the beach.
Ocean County has the highest percentage of elderly residents — 25 percent — of any New Jersey county. Just last week, Berkeley Township police found the same man twice in a single day. The police were also recently summoned by a woman who insisted her husband had disappeared — only to discover 11 hours later, that she’d forgotten she’d left him at Walmart.
What we do know is that “sundowning” describes the tendency of Alzheimer’s victim symptoms to “amp-up” around sundown. It’s a confusional state comparable to amnesia. They may forget who they are, or who you are. It’s a scary sensation to wonder; Who am I? Where am I? Or why am I? They look for the answers that will make them feel whole, but that will never happen as the disease has no cure.
By September of this year, caregivers will have the means to track people in their charge with a discretely embedded GPS tracking device. Within the sole of the Aetrex Ambulator shoe, a GPS device will identify the location of the wearer to the subscriber of the online tracking portal instantly mapping their location, bearing, speed and path. The patented technology was developed by GTX Corp (GTXO) and may be purchased at www.foot.com. Rather than imprison the victims, the solution affords all, a better quality of life.
You can use a smartphone app to find a nearby Starbucks, but if you are looking for a wandering Alzheimer’s victim, look to The GTX Corp GPS Shoe.
It’s an appealing notion that our daily pick-me-up may also confer a range of health benefits. And for coffee drinkers there’s a lot of research percolating. Several studies suggest that a daily caffeine habit may help protect against Alzheimer’s disease. But there’s a catch. The cup or two a day that most Americans drink doesn’t seem to be enough. Researchers say 500 mg of caffeine, or about five cups of regular coffee, is the dose that seems to protect the brain.
Five Cups A Day
This may sound like an excessive amount of caffeine. After five cups, lots of us would end up with the jitters and be making extra trips to the bathroom. But some coffee lovers are hard core:
“I drink five to six cups a day religiously,” says Gary Arendash, a researcher at the Florida Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, part of Florida State University. Arendash says he’s convinced that caffeine is protecting his brain.
Arendash and his colleagues at the Florida Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center have been studying the effects of caffeine on the brains of mice with Alzheimer’s disease. They’ve found that adding caffeinated water to rodents’ diet results in big improvements. The mice perform better on short-term memory and thinking tests. But only if they get enough caffeine.
“The human equivalent of two to three cups of coffee does not have benefits in our Alzheimer’s mice,” says Arendash.
Arendash’s team also documented that these super-caffeinated mice end up with about a 50-percent reduction in abnormal amyloid proteins, which are thought to play an important role in the development of Alzheimer’s.
The typical American drinks about a cup and a half of coffee a day. “So you can see that many of us are below that threshold level that we believe confers protective benefits,” says Arendash.
Look for the GTXO GPS Shoe at www.Foot.com come this September and also at the Alzhiemer’s Association site; Comfort Zone. While there is no cure for the disease, there is an immediate solution for wandering and elopement tracking without imprisoning the diseases’ victims or their caregivers.
Aetrex Worldwide Inc. has teamed with GTX Corp. to create the Aetrex Ambulator GPS Shoe, a therapeutic sneaker designed for people with Alzheimer’s disease. The shoe comes with a tiny GPS tracker that alerts a caregiver when the wearer has strayed more than a set distance. It then sends the caregiver a Google map link that plots the wearer’s location. The shoe will be available for $200 at Foot.com, GPSShoe.com and at select assisted living facilities, starting in September. The tracking service will cost $40 to $50 per month.
June 16th, 2010 · Remember Spike Lee’s “It’s the Shoes” commercial featuring Michael Jordan? Those shoes were special because everyone wanted to Be Like Mike. Today, everyone wants to be safe, especially those caring for persons with Alzheimer’s disease. By embedding a part of a Personal Emergency Response Monitoring System (PERS) in a shoe (rather than a phone/device), the GPS Shoe responds to geo-fence perimeters established by caregivers and relays the location and alerts via Google maps to smart phones and computers.
Currently scheduled for retail sale this summer, the Aetrex Ambulator® GPS Shoe will provide millions of caregivers the means to help easily find those afflicted with Alzheimer’s that wander and become lost. The GPS Shoe will be available through the Aetrex website, gpsshoe.com website and a select group of assisted living facilities.
GTX Corp (OTCBB: GTXO), a provider of customizable, embedded 2-way GPS Personal Location Services (PLS) solutions, is bringing personal GPS tracking solutions to the 5.3 million seniors afflicted with dementia by signing a four year, license agreement with Aetrex Worldwide, Inc. GTX Corp’s eight patents for the GPS Shoe cover a GPS transceiver module that is placed within the footwear and transmission of location coordinates to a central monitoring station which disseminates the location data through the use of proprietary software, cellular connectivity, the GTX Corp middleware platform and the secure viewing portal.
“We believe a miniaturized GPS tracking device embedded inside a therapeutic shoe is the ideal solution for the millions afflicted with this terrible disease, and we are very pleased, after many years of R & D, to partner up with a company like Aetrex which has devoted 64 years to making foot health products,” states Patrick Bertagna Chairman and CEO of GTX Corp. “Aetrex’s mission has always been to develop footwear and foot care products that combine unrivaled technology with innovative designs,” said Evan Schwartz, President of Aetrex Worldwide Inc. “This partnership is a terrific opportunity for Aetrex to use our expertise to extend the brand beyond the comfort category and help a segment of our population that is in need.”
May 30
“It was a nightmare.”
The 86-year-old woman had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, but her wrong-way journey shocked her family because until then, she had been able to function normally. The woman, meanwhile, was still at the wheel, driving south to San Diego, then east to Tucson. Finally, she pulled over to the side of the road and asked an Arizona state trooper how to get to California. He directed her to west Interstate 10. Several hours later she was stopped near Indio by a California Highway Patrol officer, who contacted her family.“She’s doing fine now,” says Susan. “We took away her car and license, of course.”
That story has a happy ending, but many confused seniors who become lost are never found again. The Alzheimer’s Assn. estimates that 60% of individuals with Alzheimer’s will wander at least once during the progression of the disease. Up to 70% of these individuals wander more than once, and up to several times. One study reported that nearly half of those not found within 24 hours die — usually from dehydration, exposure or injury.
“What complicates search and rescue for individuals with Alzheimer’s disease is that, unlike a lost child, many will not respond to calls to them, nor will they call out for help,” says educator Andrew Carle. “They often also become quickly frightened and attempt to hide — making locating them more difficult.” Carle, an assistant professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., specializes in aging and senior housing issues.
A problem inherent with many of the devices is that they can be removed: A patient with dementia might take off a bracelet or remove a device from his or her pocket, Carle says.
“Paranoia is a manifestation of the disease, so people with AD will often remove anything placed on them with which they are unfamiliar — for example, a ‘clip on’ or other distinct device. For the same reason, they are also adept at getting around locks, alarms or other devices intended to stop them — and, once having done so, are difficult to find.”
Carle’s personal favorite among the monitoring systems on the market is scheduled to be released for retail sale this summer: The Aetrex Ambulator GPS Shoes. The shoes, which will be sold at http://www.foot.com, (800) 526-2739, will contain a tiny embedded tracking device. Whenever the wearer wanders off more than a pre-set distance, the caregiver will receive an alert by telephone and computer.
The shoes will retail for $200 to $300, with monthly tracking available for $22.95 to $39.95, says Patrick Bertagna, chairman of GTX Corp., which builds the tracking device that will be embedded in the shoes.
The device will work anywhere there is cell coverage. If Susan’s mother had been wearing the shoes when she departed on her 500-mile journey, her family might have found her more quickly.
Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times
Of the most challenging, life-threatening issues related to care of the person with cognitive loss is the occurrence of wandering. The most dangerous form of wandering is elopement. Those who suffer from dementia experience the severe anxiety associated with not knowing where they are – the fear of disorientation drives them to search for someplace familiar. Caregivers suffer equally severe stress as they effort to keep their charges secure and free from harm. Statistics indicate that in the United States, more than 34,000 AD patients wander out of their homes each year, but many events never get reported if the victim is recovered before they need medical attention. Studies vary on the prevalence of wandering in institutionalized dementia patients, but it is estimated that an additional 11% to 24% of residents wander. Incarceration, physical restraints or drugs are not the answer to the problem as they are punishing trade-offs for what should be a higher quality of life.
The GTXCorp GPS Shoe, available from the Aetrex Worldwide site; www.foot.com in late summer offers geo-fence alerts with a variety of programmable real time tracking scenarios through a secure portal. While the GPS Shoe is not a cure, it is an afforable solution worth remembering.
For most of us, 100,000 deaths in an incomprehensible number. Put the face of a person we know on those numbers and that changes everything. Ronald Reagan is a face among those thousands as was Ralph Waldo Emerson, Jonathan Swift, and Frederick Law Olmstead. Each a victim of Alzheimer’s disease… an affliction more feared than cancer or heart disease… because the only hope is that we won’t be the one in five that succumbs while a treatment is researched for the next generation.
As Alzheimer’s progresses, the disease will promote “wandering.” Once out of home and out of the sight of care givers it is more than likely than unfortunate circumstances will befall them. Locating wanderers is stressful, dangerous and costly. The Alzheimer’s Association is working diligently in that direction with its Comfort Zone solutions.
GPS people finding and wearable tracking solutions available this summer will present the location of eloping and wandering victims on Google maps from smart phones and PDA’s in real time. Geo Fence alerts will signal caregivers when their charge is on the move. Learn more about the peace of mind potential of GPS and Personal Location Services visit; Aetrex GPS Shoe and www.foot.com to learn more about the GTX Corp the deelopeveloper of the patented life-saving technology.
