Shoes featuring GPS transmitters to help find wanderers suffering Alzheimer's disease or other dementia are coming soon to the U.S. market, Agence France-Presse reports.

The walking shoes, from GTX, have built-in global positioning satellite systems in the heels. They will retail for $300, and buyers will need to set up a monitoring service. The company said it has shipped the first 3,000 pairs to Aetrex Worldwide footwear.

The project was announced two years ago. The shoes are aimed at saving lives and the costs of police searches for seniors who have wandered away.

Project adviser Andrew Carle of George Mason University's College of Health and Human Services said that 60% of sufferers wander and become lost and that up to half who are not found within 24 hours may die from dehydration, exposure or injury.

AFP notes that seniors have rejected other GPS devices such as bracelets or pendants.

"The primary reason is that paranoia is a manifestation of the disease," Carle said. "If you put something on someone with Alzheimer's that they don't recognize, they remove it. If it's a wristwatch and it's not their wristwatch, they will take it off. So you have to hide it."

Originally, he said, the technology was targeted at children and long-distance runners.

Here's more about the marriage of GPS technology and footwear.