Dr Megan Jack, a neurosurgeon, often works 60 or 70 hours a week. And she is completely unavailable when she is in the operating room. That makes it tough to be a caregiver for her 76-year-old mother, who lives in a separate unit on Dr Jack’s property, 30 minutes away from the hospital.
To help care for her mother, who has Alzheimer’s disease, Dr Jack uses an array of high-tech tools, some of which did not exist just a few years ago. She manages her mother’s medications with a smart pill box. She changes her television channels with an app, sends appointment reminders through a digital message board – and, with her mother’s blessing, uses cameras for communication and monitoring.
“It’s been invaluable that I can both make sure she’s safe and make sure everything is going well,” Dr Jack said, “but also give her the independence and the freedom that she still deserves”.
One thing that could help fulfil the wishes of growing old in the comfort of one’s own home is the budding field of “age tech”, which encompasses tools that support older adults. Industry experts say that age tech is making homes safer for older adults and easing the minds of their caregivers, especially those who live far away or work outside the home.
Dr Jack said age tech had “really allowed me to integrate caregiving into my life, as opposed to caregiving taking over my life”.
If older adults do not have loved ones who are both close by and able to help, they might believe they do not have a ton of options. They can live independently, or, if they can afford it and qualify medically, they can move to an assisted-living facility or a nursing home, without a lot of choices in between. In-home help can be expensive and also difficult to find, given the serious shortage of home care workers.
Age tech can help bridge some important gaps, said Ms Emily Nabors, the associate director of innovation at the National Council on Aging, a non-profit advocacy group. Already, AARP reports that 25 per cent of caregivers are remotely monitoring their loved ones with apps, videos or wearables, nearly double the percentage from five years ago.
“We used to say homes are the healthcare settings of the future, but they really are healthcare settings now,” Ms Nabors said. “Ageing in place is very realistic.”
More than 700 companies are in AARP’s AgeTech Collaborative, a group that connects businesses, non-profits and funders to help get new technologies off the ground. Altogether, the collaborative’s start-ups have raised nearly US$1 billion (S$1.27 billion) in the past four years.
The products include smart walkers, glasses with lenses that provide real-time captions of conversations for those with hearing issues, and a concierge service that connects older people to drivers and deliveries, even if they do not have a smartphone.
Ms Nabors does foresee some affordability and access barriers to age tech, including the lack of high-speed internet in rural areas, but she said one vital resource would be local ageing agencies, which can offer advice and sometimes free support.
Ms Janet Marasa leaned on the agency near her home in Rockland County, New York, to get a free robotic pet for her mother Carol DeMaio, 80, who has dementia. The pets, manufactured by a company called Joy for All, aim to offer emotional support without the upkeep.
Ms DeMaio named the robotic dog Sabrina, after a golden retriever who died. The new Sabrina stays at the foot of her bed at night. As soon as Ms DeMaio stirs awake, the dog reacts. “She said it gives her a reason to get up in the morning,” Ms Marasa said.
The dog has been a boon to her, too. “It provides comfort and interaction that I can’t provide every second,” said Ms Marasa, who lives with her mother but works full time for the county government. “It gives her something that she can feel like is totally her own.”
Even technologies not specifically marketed as age tech can help older adults maintain their independence, said Ms Laurie Orlov, founder of the blog Aging and Health Technology Watch. She pointed to video-calling and telehealth platforms; remotely controlled thermostats and lights; and smart speakers, doorbells and watches.
“All technology can be customised to help older adults stay longer in their homes and help their family members feel good about it, or at least tolerate it,” Ms Orlov said.
That will only become more true with the continued proliferation of artificial intelligence, she added. Some older adults are already using conversational AI to get answers about things such as the weather or their medications.
AI can also assist in pattern detection: alerting caregivers to signals that might indicate declines in someone’s cognition or mental health, such as changing their speech pattern or leaving the house less frequently.
One AI-powered age tech tool is ElliQ, a tabletop companion robot that looks like a sleek silver desk lamp with a screen. About 1 ½ years ago, Ms Camille Wolsonovich got one for free, thanks to a local non-profit, for her 90-year-old father Bill Castellano. He lives alone in a senior community.
Ms Wolsonovich, who runs a consulting business, relies on ElliQ to lead her father in exercises and remind him to take his pills and drink water. The robot also asks her father about his sleep and mood via automated check-ins.
“Everything’s just another layer that gives us more confidence, from a caregiving standpoint, that he’s good,” she said. “I don’t have to necessarily track everything all the time and be overbearing.”
As for Mr Castellano? He plays trivia digitally and converses daily with ElliQ. The robot, which has a friendly female voice, asks questions, cracks jokes and remembers his likes, dislikes and friends. “She’s great company,” he said. “Everybody around me wants one.”
Dr Clara Berridge studies the ethics of age tech at the University of Washington.
She has many privacy concerns, namely that most direct-to-consumer products are not subject to medical privacy laws, despite being privy to sensitive health information. Though she hopes the federal government will eventually step in to regulate these products, as it has in other countries, the onus remains on the consumer for now.
What may be well-intentioned monitoring could reveal information that an older adult would rather keep private, such as issues with incontinence, or the comings and goings of a romantic partner.
“It can lead to somebody feeling infantilised,” Dr Berridge said. “Like there’s not a place to hide within your own home.”
Her research shows that adult children often underestimate how much their parents can understand about technology and how much they want to be involved in tech-related decisions.
She encouraged caregivers to have transparent conversations about privacy implications and to avoid ultimatums or the idea that any decision must be permanent. She said caregivers should put themselves in their parents’ shoes: is this something they would want their own children monitoring? NYTIMES
Source : https://www.straitstimes.com/business/invest/how-age-tech-might-help-you-grow-old-at-home
