Care and Alertness: Using GPS Tracking and Exit Alarms in Dementia Care

TY - ABST

T1 - Care and Alertness: Using GPS Tracking and Exit Alarms in Dementia Care

AU - Meyer, Astrid

AU - Albrechtslund, Anders

AU - Ballegaard, Stinne Aaløkke

PY - 2025/3/15

Y1 - 2025/3/15

N2 - Denmark is currently facing a rise in the number of people with dementia. As many people with dementia have difficulties orienting themselves, the use of wearable GPS trackers and exit alarms is increasingly common in dementia care. Both technologies are positioned as neat solutions to dementia care challenges. By wearing a GPS tracker, a person with dementia at risk of getting lost, can continue to go on walks alone as the person is easy to find and based on the GPS location. Similarly, an exit alarm may notify carers before a person, who no longer is able to navigate safely in traffic, leaves and make it possible to accompany them. In this article, we explore the care consequences of involving and relying on such technologies in dementia care. This article is based on the research project Signs of Life – a collaboration in which researcher and care practitioners developed a new framework for working with GPS tracking and exit alarms in ways that involve ongoing attention to practical matters as well as ethical reflection. Based on ethnographic fieldwork from this project, we explore how these technologies play prominent roles, not only as tools for care, but also in shaping care values and practices. We argue that GPS trackers and exit alarms involve a reliance on alertness and vigilance that shape both temporal and embodied aspects of care. In doing to, an emphasis is places on safety and security as key values making for new entanglements in dementia care.

AB - Denmark is currently facing a rise in the number of people with dementia. As many people with dementia have difficulties orienting themselves, the use of wearable GPS trackers and exit alarms is increasingly common in dementia care. Both technologies are positioned as neat solutions to dementia care challenges. By wearing a GPS tracker, a person with dementia at risk of getting lost, can continue to go on walks alone as the person is easy to find and based on the GPS location. Similarly, an exit alarm may notify carers before a person, who no longer is able to navigate safely in traffic, leaves and make it possible to accompany them. In this article, we explore the care consequences of involving and relying on such technologies in dementia care. This article is based on the research project Signs of Life – a collaboration in which researcher and care practitioners developed a new framework for working with GPS tracking and exit alarms in ways that involve ongoing attention to practical matters as well as ethical reflection. Based on ethnographic fieldwork from this project, we explore how these technologies play prominent roles, not only as tools for care, but also in shaping care values and practices. We argue that GPS trackers and exit alarms involve a reliance on alertness and vigilance that shape both temporal and embodied aspects of care. In doing to, an emphasis is places on safety and security as key values making for new entanglements in dementia care.

M3 - Conference abstract for conference

T2 - 4S 2025 Conference: Reverberations

Y2 - 3 September 2025 through 6 September 2025

ER -