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Innovations
Geriatric Times May/June 2002 Vol. III Issue 3
Personal Alarm and Locator System Available in South Florida
One of the most problematic aspects of caring for a patient with Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the possibility that they may become confused and wander. Ituran Florida Corp. recently introduced the LifeTrak Personal Alarm & Locator (PAL) system to enable caregivers in South Florida to locate patients who have wandered. They plan to launch the service nationally in a few years.
LifeTrak PAL is a mobile, handheld device that straps onto a patient's belt loop like a cell phone. It has the ability to not only locate a missing person but can also be used by the carrier to summon police or to request assistance in a medical emergency. It can locate a person in real time 24 hours a day, seven days a week, within a specific area. The LifeTrak PAL can locate users within 100 feet even in a metropolitan area. Caregivers who suspect that their patient with AD is missing can contact LifeTrak's monitoring station either by phone or Internet to initiate a tracking signal. LifeTrak can locate the carrier inside buildings and even under snow with an internal antenna that does not require line of sight with the sky -- RG
Brain Stimulation Therapy Improves PD Side Effects
The symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD) stem from the degeneration of neurons that produce dopamine. Levodopa (Atamet) is the mainstay treatment for patients with PD. However, long-term levodopa treatment may be complicated by dyskinesia and motor fluctuations in which patients cycle between periods of good mobility and impaired mobility. Eventually, the combination of these symptoms and side effects can cause patients to become totally dependent on others for their activities of daily living.
Recently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Activa Parkinson's Control Therapy, which uses "brain pacemaker" technology to relieve the debilitating slowness, stiffness and shaking that characterizes PD. The therapy delivers controlled pulses of electrical stimulation to targeted areas of the brain using an implanted medical device akin to a cardiac pacemaker.
Based on a study conducted at 18 centers in North America, Europe and Australia, the data submitted to the FDA showed that Activa Parkinson's Control Therapy safely and effectively improved movement control and mobility in patients with advanced stages of PD when drugs alone often proved inadequate. Symptoms improved for 56 of the 117 patients while on medication and for 102 of the 117 patients while off medication.
In addition, periods of good motor function and relief from symptoms improved in a subset of 64 patients with verifiable diaries, increasing by an average of 6.7 hours in the globus pallidus pars interna (GPi) stimulated group and 6.1 hours in the subthalamic nucleus (STN) stimulated group. (STN and GPi are deep brain structures that become hyperactive in PD; there is one of each structure on both sides of the brain.)
Neurologist William J. Marks Jr., M.D., assistant professor of neurology at University of California, San Francisco, and medical director of the Center for Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center, commented to the press, "Activa Therapy is a major breakthrough in the treatment of Parkinson's disease, because up until this point, patients relied on medications such as levodopa that over time may not provide control of symptoms...and that may, in fact, produce significant side effects" -- AV
