Alzheimer GPS

This essay does not describe an existing computer program, just one that should exist. This essay is about a suggested student project in Java programming. This essay gives a rough overview of how it might work. I have no source, object, specifications, file layouts or anything else useful to implementing this project.

This project outline is not like the artificial tidy problems you are spoon-fed in school, when all the facts you need are included, nothing extraneous is mentioned, the answer is fully specified, along with hints to nudge you toward a single expected canonical solution. This project is much more like the real world of messy problems where it is up to you to fully the define the end point, or a series of ever more difficult versions of this project, and research the information yourself to solve them.

Everything I have to say to help you with this project is written below. I am not prepared to help you implement it; or give you any additional materials. I have too many other projects of my own.

Though I am a programmer, I don’t do people’s homework for them. That just robs them of an education.

You have my full permission to implement this project in any way you please and to keep all the profits from your endeavor.

This is a project to help someone with advanced Alzheimers. It is a GPS unit for Alzheimer patients. Alzheimer patients often get lost, or wander off. They forget familiar land marks. It works like this:

The patient carries a combination cell phone and GPS unit on a necklace. When the patient touches the unit, or holds it, it starts giving verbal instructions on how to walk home, repeating as necessary. If the patient is too far from home to walk, it phones home and reports the location of the patient, using street names, as well as latitude and longitude.

Note that there are no buttons to push and nothing to look at on the unit. It is activated just by touching it.

The family at home can at any time phone the unit and get it to report the ambient sounds, let them talk to the patient, and find out where the patient is. The patient does not need to do anything to answer the call.

For less far gone people, the unit can be programmed to, for example, guide the patient to a friend’s house, or a store and back home again.

The unit might also have a mode for fully functional people to call any number or navigate to any location.

A normal voice-style GPS unit is geared toward drivers. This would be geared toward slow walkers who need very simple instruction.

The primary difficulty of this project is getting at the interfaces to the GPS and maps. The secondary problem is selling the Alzheimer idea to a GPS manufacturer, after showing them your laptop software prototype.

	You can get the freshest copy of this page from:	or possibly from your local J: drive (Java virtual drive/mindprod.com website mirror)
	http://mindprod.com/project/alzheimergps.html	J:\mindprod\project\alzheimergps.html
	Please email your feedback for publication, errors, omissions, typos, formatting errors, ambiguities, unclear wording, broken/redirected link reports, suggestions to improve this page or comments to Roedy Green :
	Canadian Mind Products
	mindprod.com IP:[65.110.21.43]
view Blog	Your face IP:[38.107.191.102]
Feedback	You are visitor number 11.