Technologies to Connect & Age in Place

There are amazing technologies out there, and I’m sure more are being invented as I write this.  Kaiser Health News ran a story about technology designed to allow elders to age in place and to satay connected. New Technologies Help Seniors Age In Place — And Not Feel Alone opens by relating a story of  one elder who agreed to the use of a long-distance monitoring system so her son across the country could keep track of her well-being. “For many, the technology offers not just the tools they need to continue to live at home, but newfound confidence and connectedness with faraway family and friends.”  One expert quoted in the article has named this trend as “‘monitored independence,’ and it is changing how older generations age in America. ‘People want to be autonomous, irrespective of age,'” said this expert.  The article notes that voice-assisted technologies are goign to play a large role in helping elders age in place as these devices can do a lot more than just play music. Pair those with apps designed to help elders and will become proactive in interactions rather than reactive. The article offers a forthcoming app as an example where it will ask the elder if the elder has remembered to take her medication. There are currently apps that remind the user to take medication and allows the user to designate a second party to get an alert if the user misses a dose of medication.

More fall detection devices are coming our way as well, some very soon and others before too long.

It’s interesting to see tech moving into this market and hopefully more will be done to help us live independently longer.  Is anyone thinking about the privacy aspects of using all this tech?