“There's no place like home,” repeated Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz as she clicked the heels of her shoes three times in order to find her way back to Kansas. Now, thanks to a patent recently granted a downtown Los Angeles-based tech firm, that scene may have new meaning for Alzheimer victims. The GTX Corporation, which specializes in the creation of Global Positioning Systems applications in cellphones and less conventional, wearable items, announced it will soon begin production of a line of footwear called the Ambulator.

The shoe, reports iStockAnalyst, will provide “a dynamic method for accurately positioning the shoe with GPS

data capture and transmission of that location to a central monitoring

station which disseminates the secure data through the use of

proprietary software and cellular connectivity and the Internet.”

According to an August feature in the Washington Post, retailers will “start selling the shoe next spring for $200 to $300, plus a monthly

monitoring fee starting at about $18 per month. Some of the costs may

be reimbursed by Medicare.” But will they provide good arch support?

Advertising disclosure: We may receive compensation for some of the links in our stories. Thank you for supporting LA Weekly and our advertisers.