Comedian Ellen DeGeneres in her early days as a standup comedian told the joke, “My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was sixty. She’s ninety-seven now, and we don’t know where the hell she is.” Funny joke, but for many people this is no laughing matter.
Fortunately the same technology that can allow athletes to know how where and how far they’ve run can be used to keep track of family members with Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia. Swiss-based u-blox has created Watchie, a GPS-based device that can be worn by patients as a watch and provide real time GPS tracking for caregivers.
Advanced features can include “safe zones” that can be set to alert caretakers should the patient leave a designated zone, as well as a G-Senor that detects sudden movement should the wearer fall down. Best of all the Watchie’s battery will run for weeks, so even those active grandmother’s will likely tire out before the GPS gives out.
