An Extreme Case of Alzheimer’s
Alzheimer’s can be an insidious disease. It comes on slowly, subtly, and seems almost harmless at first.
In later stages, it commands control of the body, and the victim feels helpless under its tightening grip. Whole chunks of memory seem to be erased. The patient has moments of clarity, only to be robbed the next moment of rational thought.
A Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune feature about the effects of Alzheimer’s disease on a Midwestern couple has recently stirred up debate and powerful emotions. Clarice and Jennings Sunderland, who live and work on a dairy farm, struggle daily with the cruelty of Alzheimer’s. Clarice, 76, often loses her bearings in the house she has occupied with her husband for decades. A mother of six and former registered nurse, she thought she knew what to expect when she was first diagnosed. But today, she spends long periods of time in silence and confusion, until the face of her husband of 50 years pulls her back into reality.
Jennings, 78, was recently put in jail and charged with false imprisonment when authorities questioned his care giving practices. They found out Jennings occasionally draped a chain around his wife and her lounge chair when the two were in the same room watching television. His wife was prone to wandering and Jennings said he was afraid she would disappear on their vast acreage if he dozed off. His tracking system was crude, but effective. If she lifted the chain off, he would wake from the rattle.
The Sunderland children support their father and have turned their anger against a society that they think judges first and asks questions later. Social workers took their mother away to a nursing home, where she stayed for three months while the matter was sorted out. Her health quickly slid downhill in the cold and unfamiliar environment.
The charges were eventually dropped and the couple are back together. The chain security system is replaced with custom door alarms and smoke detectors.
Jennings never harmed his wife, but he now admits there are alternatives to restraint – many of them good ones.
GPS Tracking Manufacturers Focus on Alzheimer’s
There are great advances being made in GPS tracking systems for the elderly and those with dementia-related disorders. GPS tracking was first used by the military. Later, the public achieved access in the form of vehicle tracking systems.
Recently, competition in the GPS tracking industry has gotten tough and engineering is so advanced, that GPS tracking systems are getting very small and portable. They can be used for personal tracking and be carried almost without detection by children, athletes, teenagers and the elderly. Prices are increasingly affordable to the average middle-class American.
Loved One Missing? Track Them Live
A live or real-time GPS tracking system is necessary to recover a person who is missing – either by their own doing, or at the hand of another. With real-time GPS tracking, the person’s location is calculated at regular intervals, based on the readings of GPS satellites. The data is transmitted by a cellular modem to an Internet connected computer or handheld. If a person goes missing, he or she can be tracked down by GPS tracking coordinates.
Alzheimer’s Quite a Large Threat
According to the Alzheimer’s Association, 5 million people in the U.S. currently have the disease. Of those, about 60 percent will move into the later stages and start wandering. As a result, there is a great demand for safety devices for Alzheimer’s patients. The makers of GPS tracking devices are responding.
The Alzheimer’s Association has endorsed and is coordinating a GPS tracking system called Comfort Zone. A company, Omnilink Services which is a specialist in prisoner monitoring, was hired by the Alzheimer’s Association to adapt the technology for the elderly. Omnilink designed and maintains the 100 percent Web-based mapping and locating service. The system was designed to interface with a number of GPS tracking systems, made by various manufacturers. The receiver/transmitters might be pocket-sized handheld GPS tracking systems, or they might be hardware integrated into a watch, a necklace pendant or a pair of shoes. The receiver/transmitter costs an average of $200. A monthly monitoring fee of about $50 is an additional charge.
Each person has a unique account and login. When Dad’s whereabouts need to be discovered, a family member logs into the system. GPS tracking position coordinates are recorded every two minutes.
The GPS tracking system has a geo-fencing feature, which will alert a family member or facility staff if the patient wanders beyond a programmed virtual boundary.
The advantage of this tracking system is that it is equally useful for Alzheimer’s sufferers in all stages of the disease. At early onset, a caregiver can simply use the GPS tracking system to judge how well the patient travels about on his own, while still leading an independent life. In late stages of the disease, the hopelessly lost patient can be theoretically “found” by his GPS tracking coordinates while only a few critical minutes have ticked away.
Sources: Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune ; Alzheimer’s Association
Tags: alzheimer, extreme, GPS Tracking, loved one, Manufacturer
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