Living Well Blog

‘Home Safety’ Posts

Home Health Technology Can Help Lower Costs of Senior Care

Monday, January 3rd, 2011

Living Well technology to lower cost of seniorcare

Living Well Assisted Living at Home has been an advocate of the high tech – high touch model as a tool to enhance home safety for seniors at home and a model that helps lower costs for seniorcare.  We found support to this stance on an article by Science Daily (1) on 12/31/10 “…Home health care technology may provide one important solution to global concerns about how to sustain health care systems threatened by rising costs and manpower shortages, but such a change faces multiple obstacles to adoption, according to a new RAND Corporation study. They continue by saying  ‘…Home health care technology spans a broad spectrum from basic diagnostic tools, such as glucose meters, to advanced telemedicine solutions. Those advances have pushed the frontier of care management further into the home setting. The advances have the potential to not only support current care delivery, but to fundamentally change the model to a more efficient and more patient-centered one, according to the report. Home care also makes it easier for patients to age in place, if they prefer, and avoid institutionalization…” Read the report

Some other pieces of technology are the ones that assure home safety and fall detection. Read more about safety technology.

(1) RAND Corporation (2010, December 31). Home health care could help sustain health care systems, study finds. ScienceDaily. Retrieved January 3, 2011, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2010/12/101208130048.htm

Series Overview: Growing Old, At Home….Where We Age

Monday, August 30th, 2010

Only 5 percent of Americans ages 65 and older live in group quarters like nursing homes. In recent years, this share has been steadily declining (based on 2008 American Community Survey data). Numbers do not total 100 due to rounding. In a series of reports, NPR explores the quiet revolution — both high-tech and low — that aims to make it easier for seniors to age at home.

Check the series
Part 1: ‘Villages’ Help Neighbors Age At Home
Part 2: High-Tech Aging: Tracking Seniors’ Every Move
Part 3: Wired Homes Keep Tabs On Aging Parents
Part 4: Building Homes to Age In

‘Villages’ Help Neighbors Age At Home

Monday, August 30th, 2010

In Chevy Chase, Md., Betty and Jack O’Connor are part of a growing number of people banding together to help each other grow old at home. Betty is 80, Jack, 85, and it’s something of a triumph that they’re still living independently in their suburban house, with its backyard garden and pool. Jack suffered a brain injury in a fall five years ago. Since then, a hip replacement has left him frail, and an allergic reaction to the anesthesia in that operation stole even more of his memory. NPR Radio emission by Jennifer Ludden.

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High-Tech Aging: Tracking Seniors’ Every Move

Monday, August 30th, 2010

Lida and Chris Bridgers created Adaptive Home, an elder care monitoring system that uses sensors to track movement around a home. Their company grew out of their own need to monitor Lida’s mother, Flora Roberts after a stroke.
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Wired Homes Keep Tabs On Aging Parents

Monday, August 30th, 2010

A New Paradigm: High Tech to help people to age in place. This article shows how the boomer generation that has grown up with e-mail, cell phones and video cameras is now using all of these things to help care for their aging parents.  A NPR radio emission by Jennifer Ludden

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How To Videos: Videos to care for your elder loved one

Friday, July 30th, 2010

Watch these videos to get step-by-step instruction on caring for your elderly loved one. Learn about topics including, how to make your bathroom safer, moving your parents into your home and ensuring your parent’s end-of-life wishes.

Watch the videos

Technologies Help Adult Children Monitor Aging Parents

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

Peace of mind for adult children89% of Americans do not want to leave their homes when they age. Most of these people will be live alone and receive support from a variety of health and community-based providers, family caregivers.  How will the long-term care system provide care to a growing number of seniors living in increasingly scattered locations? And more importantly, how can that system continue to provide quality care in the face of workforce shortages, rising care costs and decreasing resources? Technology has the potential to play a critical role in launching a new model of geriatric care that allows older people to live independently for as long as possible, supports family caregivers in the important work they do and gives health care providers the tools they need to deliver high-quality care at a reasonable cost. The just released article Technologies Help Adult Children Monitor Aging Parents on The New York Times, states that these technologies “…are godsends for families. But, as with any parent-child relationship, all loving intentions can be tempered by issues of control, role-reversal, guilt and a little deception — enough loaded stuff to fill a psychology syllabus. For just as the current population of adults in their 30s and 40s have built a reputation for being a generation of hyper-involved, hovering parents to their own children, they now have the tools to micro-manage their aging mothers and fathers as well…”

We, at Living Well Assisted Living at Home,  believe the provide a safety net for the elders, an option to stay at home while providing peace of mind to the adult children and family members.

Read the full article