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
To dig deeper, visit www.gtxcorp.com
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