Alzheimer's disease and other dementias are rising in alarming proportions consuming vast amounts of resources the world over, according to The World Alzheimer Report for 2010. The total estimated worldwide costs of dementia are $604B in 2010, with about 70% of the costs occurring in Western Europe and North America.

If dementia care were a country, it would be the world's 18th largest economy, ranking between Turkey and Indonesia. If this market were a company, it would be the world's largest by annual revenue exceeding Wal-Mart ($414B) and Exxon Mobil ($311B).

 

Dementia mainly affects older people, although there is a growing awareness of cases that start before the senior age of 65. After age 65, the likelihood of developing dementia roughly doubles every five years. There is an urgent need to develop cost-effective packages of medical and social care that meet the needs of people with dementia and their caregivers across the course of the illness. Only by investing now in research and cost-effective approaches to care can future societal costs be anticipated and managed.

 

Nana technology is one such breaking concept. The term Nana technology, recently mentioned in Forbes,  was coined, defined, and categorized in 2004 by Andrew Carle, an internationally recognized expert on aging, senior housing, and assistive technologies.A word play on the scientific field of nanotechnology, Nana technology is loosely directed to imply technologies for someone's grandmother, or Nana. Carle was the first person to advance the use of this phrase with a formal definition, and one focused exclusively on microchip technologies, with the end result of naming a new and distinct subset of the technology services industry.  Some systems use different types of sensors to help monitor the elderly. Other devices include sensors to call for help if someone falls. There are also simplified cell phones and high-tech medicine dispensers available, and devices such as GPS enabled Smart Shoes can also help locate Alzheimer's patients if they wander off. “The GPS Smart Shoe is currently the only sound end-to-end solution for this increasingly growing problem” states professor Andrew Carle- George Mason University.

 

Recently announcing that the GPS Smart Shoe was selected as a finalist in the Most Innovative Location Device category of the Locations & Beyond Summit and the People's Choice Awards.

GTX Corp (GTXO) has been working on e-health GPS Tracking solutions which could prove enormously beneficial to wandering dementia patients.

GTX a leader in embedded real-time miniaturized GPS Tracking personal location services (PLS) was founded in 2002 and is based in Los Angeles, California, known for its game changing patented miniaturized GPS tracking device in a shoe and  block buster GPS based smart phone apps.

 The rising need for GTX Corp's technology continues to be influenced by the increasing numbers of elderly and those that are memory impaired, and so the epic battle of technology and illness wages on.