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By Greg Bartlett

In the United States, most patients who suffer from Alzheimer’s or Senile Dementia are placed in nursing homes or skilled care facilities. This move is made for their protection, yet it alienates many elderly from their families. GPS tracking of these patients could make it possible for them to stay at home longer.

In the United Kingdom, most dementia patients are left in their own homes for as long as humanly possible to assure their care by family members. Unfortunately, many of these individuals end up getting lost, involving police in searches to find them, or they end up locked in their own homes while family members run errands. City government in some London areas is backing the use of GPS tracking to monitor Dementia patients.

Even people who suffer from various forms of Dementia have human rights, including a right to privacy. However, if a family member is able to get a Dementia patient to volunteer for the GPS tracking, devices are attached to clothing or jewelry that will allow family members to track the movements of their elderly relations with dementia.

These devices can be used to set up an electronic fence and notify family members when the elderly patient travels beyond a set distance from home. If the patient does not return on time, the GPS data will allow the family to locate and recover the patient without having to involve local authorities unless an emergency situation exists.

Government officials are quick to inform family members that the use of these devices for their elderly relations with dementia is not to be used as a substitute for vigilant care on the part of loved ones. However, GPS tracking does provide a certain amount of freedom that many Dementia patients need in order to continue to live in their own homes instead being put into some sort of facility.

This program is being used with success in the United Kingdom. It might be a good idea to try it in the US as well. This could be the means to keep some of elderly patients who can still mostly take of themselves out of skilled care facilities for a longer time, which would save them and their families a great deal of money in the long run. Plus, the elderly patients who volunteer to wear the GPS tracking devices can feel more secure that their families are looking after them instead of shipping them off to some facility from nobody returns.