Tag Archives: assistive technology

Dem@Care: Dementia Ambient Care 

Posted on by under Care, Gerontechnology, Health

Dem@Care aspires to contribute to the timely diagnosis, assessment, maintenance and promotion of self-independence of people with dementia, by deepening the understanding of how the disease affects their everyday life and behaviour

It implements a multi-parametric closed-loop remote management solution that affords adaptive feedback to the person with dementia, while at the same time including clinicians into the remote follow-up, enabling them to maintain a comprehensive view of the health status and progress of the person with dementia.

Check out the project’s website to watch videos and learn more about the work they are doing:  Dem@Care

Read more about the project at: Dem@Care: Dementia Ambient Care – Multi-Sensing Monitoring for Intelligent Remote Management and Decision Support 

Advertisement

14 Technologies Seniors Should Use to Make Life Easier

Posted on by under Gerontechnology

14 Technologies Seniors Should Use to Make Life Easier

Technology Allows Aging in Place to Happen

The most efficient way to lower long-term care costs is to remain at home and to delay nursing home placement. People can stay in their homes using home and community-based services. What cost-effective means will keep them safe and independent? We think it’s technology. But which ones? Here are 14 technologies seniors should use to make their lives easier.

Read the rest of this article here, on AssistedLiving.About.com

Baby Boomers Are The First Tech-Savvy Retirees

Posted on by under Gerontechnology

This article comes to us from Huffington Post. With increasing use of wearable technologies, robotic assistants, home automation, and a whole range of welfare technologies to support independent living, safety, and health, this generation of retirees are doing it differently than we have seen before!

Baby Boomers Are The First Tech-Savvy Retirees — And Have The Home Renovations To Prove It

08/11/2015 9:36 am EDT by  Sr. Editor | NowItCounts.com

Newest retirees want state-of-the-art technologies in homes and home offices for consulting work.

Time to throw out the notion of the “stuffy” grandparents houses like we used to visit in our childhoods. Continue reading →

The 10 Best US Cities for Technology-Assisted Living

Posted on by under Gerontechnology

This article comes to us from Redfin Blog. To find the “best” cities for tech-supported living, the authors of this article looked at 5 app-based services that aging adults would find useful, monthly mortgage payments, and monthly assisted living facility costs in the cities. If it cost less to live at home and use the services than it would to live in assisted living, the cities made the list. So, while you are reading this list, please keep in mind that these are the criteria they used. Of course, there are many other options for using technology to support independent living, and if you want to read more about this, check out some of my other posts – you will see suggestions at the bottom of this post.

The 10 Best Cities for Technology-Assisted Living

by | August 11, 2015

10BestCitiesTechnologyAssistedLiving_Banner

The National Conference of State Legislatures and AARP Public Policy Institute report that nearly 90 percent of people over the age of 65 want to stay in their home for as long as possible. Fortunately, in most cases, they won’t have to move as they age. According to Seniorly, a service that helps people find senior care, the majority of seniors do NOT need to move into a nursing home. They simply need some care equivalent to what they would find in an assisted living community, which includes assistance with daily activities like meals, medication, housekeeping, bathing and transportation.

And these days, there’s an app for that. An elderly woman can take an Uber to her friend’s home, find someone to walk her dog through Rover.com, schedule her lawn to be mowed or her house to be cleaned through Porch, get groceries delivered through Instacart, and schedule a professional caregiver to assist with bathing, meal preparation and other daily living activities through CareLinx. Or, for those seniors who aren’t tech-savvy, friends and family can use these technology-based services to arrange care for them. Continue reading →

Danes love assisted living technologies

Posted on by under Gerontechnology

Experiencing technologies as part of everyday life breaks down prejudice and misconceptions!

Odense Health - Innovation & Business

According to a new survey from the European Commission, Danes are the most positive and open-minded towards robots and robotic aids in Europe.

View original post 471 more words

Designer Creates Tableware to Help People With Dementia

Posted on by under Care, Gerontechnology, Health, Inspiration

I came across this post through one or another of the dementia sites that I check out. This is a great idea! If you live or work with dementia, you have likely heard to use red (or other contrasting color) for plates and cups so that a person with dementia can identify them on the table and to help stimulate eating. The tableware in this post has been designed by a designer after her grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Can I also just say that grandmothers are some of my favorite people in the whole multiverse and, as you can see from this example, truly inspiring ❤

Continue reading →

Wearable technologies that support living with dementia

Posted on by under Care, Gerontechnology, Reviews

Wearable devices are:
Wearable:  the device is worn on the body throughout its use, it should not need to be carried.
Controllable:  the device is controllable by the user, either actively or passively.
Enhancing:  the device will augment knowledge, facilitate learning, or enhance experiences.

One of my posts on Wearable Technology was viewed by a lot of people in the first week I posted it on my other blog (80 is a lot in my world!). When I originally came across the website (which I only summarized and repeated the information), I had intended to comb back through and discuss which ones could be relevant for many carers and people with dementia. This is what I have done my PhD on (you can read more at PhD is Finished!, with pictures!), so I am particularly excited to do this. This list is compiled with the intent for supporting living with dementia and in care, and many of the technologies will be appropriate for home care. Continue reading →

What’s it like to be an unemployed dementia specialist?

Posted on by under Dementia in Denmark

Shortly said, it’s incredibly frustrating.

By 2015, there are very few people who have not hear of Alzheimer’s disease or another type of dementia. Many people have also had personal experience with a friend, family member, or community member who has developed dementia. Many people are also aware that there are more and more people being diagnosed with dementia, and that there is a growing demand for quality care and services. Most governments specifically announce an increased need for qualified professionals in the area of dementia.

In a time when there is a growing demand for dementia specialists, it is both confusing and counteractive to be unemployed.

Continue reading →

Smartphone app to help remember family members

Posted on by under Gerontechnology

Samsung app helps people with Alzheimer’s remember their families

by Jon Fingas | @jonfingas from Engadget.com April 27th 2015 (some content is edited to better fit this site)

Samsung Backup Memory

If you’ve seen Still Alice, you know how important a smartphone can be for someone with Alzheimer’s disease — it helps jog memories that might otherwise be lost. Samsung is clearly aware of this, as it just released a dedicated Backup Memory app to stimulate the memories of people with early-onset dementia. The Android tool uses Bluetooth to detect when friends and family running the app are nearby. If they are, it’ll both identify the person and show user-uploaded photos and videos that recall past events. The app is currently very simple (Samsung still wants to add GPS locations, for instance), but it’s reportedly promising enough in early tests that it’s slowing down the effects of Alzheimer’s and making life just a little bit easier.

You can download the Anderoid app for free from Google Play.

8 companies that are changing aging

Posted on by under Gerontechnology, Inspiration

This article comes from CNBC, and is a topic I am particularly interested in as I also like studying and being an entrepreneur in the gerontology and gerontechnology field! Aging2.0 is a GREAT program that is helping to launch many innovative and socially-beneficial companies, all focused on making life more enjoyable for aging adults! I had the pleasure of meeting with Stephen Johnston, the other co-founder of Aging2.0, when working on launching a start-up focused on making it easier to find a helpful and useful Assistive Technology. You can read more about that on my page on Adventures in Entrepreneurship in Dementia Care.

Tapping into the longevity economy

—By Julie Halpert, special to CNBC.com
Posted 08 April 2015

The longevity economy, representing all economic activity serving the needs of Americans over 50, is expected to top $13.5 trillion by 2032, according to Oxford Economics. This opportunity isn’t lost on savvy entrepreneurs.

Out of a total 290 entrepreneurs who attended the annual Boomer Summit last month in Chicago, 40 percent were entrepreneurs hoping to pitch their products to potential investors and get ideas on how to best appeal to this demographic. That was twice the amount as the previous year, and for the first time, they came from many different countries.

Katy Fike, co-founder of Aging2.0, a start-up accelerator program, and founding partner of Generator Ventures, a venture fund focused on aging and long-term care, said the industry is attracting graduates from top-tier business schools. Some entrepreneurs have already developed particularly successful products geared toward the demographic shift. Many of these ideas sprung from a personal experience and a desire to solve a problem endured by a loved one.

Here are 8 business owners who have already found millions in the longevity economy.

Continue reading →

Reminder program for people living with dementia

Posted on by under Dementia in Denmark, Gerontechnology

I wanted to bring your attention to an upcoming technology designed for people with dementia. Dan, one of the creators, has contacted me through this blog and told me about this project he is currently working on. I hope to meet up with him in Copenhagen in June to discuss it further. It’s a company that is in the starting stages (looking for support through their Kickstarter campaign), but at least you can get an idea of what passionate people are working on!

It’s a tablet that can inform them of the date, time, upcoming activities, or show pictures when language is no longer as useful to communicate.

One thing I REALLY like about this one over the others I have seen is that it is designed to work with Mac, Windows or whatever type of tablet/computer/smart phone that you already have. And another thing I really like, is that you can change the content depending on the level of understanding. So you can list the day, date and time and later change it to just the day of the week, or just pictures.

Here’s their website:  http://www.mindbuddy.com/

And their Kickstarter campaign, if you would like to go directly to see their video and support them:  http://kck.st/1E0nExN

More Older Adults Are Becoming Inventors

Posted on by under Gerontechnology, Inspiration

This is a re-post from The New York Times.

APRIL 17, 2015

Bob Nepper, an electrical engineer who retired from 3M Company decades ago, is working on a low-cost way to purify water in the world’s poorest countries. Credit: Angela Jimenez for The New York Times

LIKE many inventors, Bob Nepper, 82, is a compulsive improver. Mr. Nepper, an electrical engineer who lives in North St. Paul, Minn., has pet projects that have included a self-guided lawn mower and an outside faucet that can run hot and cold. His basement is stocked with tools like a lathe and a milling machine to craft his ideas.

Continue reading →

Designing technology at age 90

Posted on by under Gerontechnology, Inspiration

This is an awesome National Public Radio story about a 90 year old woman who is using her wisdom and talents to develop technologies for aging adults!

Beskind says as she gets older and faces new problems in the world, she’s thankful she’s a designer. “It makes aging more tolerable, more enjoyable,” she says. “I enjoy the age I’m in. I think it’s one of the best chapters of my life.”

Barbara Beskind, 90, is a designer at IDEO who works with engineers on products that improve the quality of life for older people.

At 90, She’s Designing Tech For Aging Boomers

JANUARY 19, 2015 2:32 PM ET You can also listen to the NPR story on this article: 
In Silicon Valley’s youth-obsessed culture, 40-year-olds get plastic surgery to fit in. But IDEO, the firm that famously developed the first mouse for Apple, has a 90-year-old designer on staff.

Barbara Beskind says her age is an advantage.

“Everybody who ages is going to be their own problem-solver,” she says. And designers are problem-solvers. Beskind speaks while sitting on a couch at the open office space of IDEO in San Francisco. She commutes to the office once a week from a community for older adults where falling is a problem.

Continue reading →

Film review! “Robot & Frank”

Posted on by under Reviews

In early 2014, I saw a film called “Robot & Frank.” I think I found it browsing through a robotics website. I know just a little about robotics, but am VERY interested 🙂 I was impressed with the film, and have recommended it to many of my friends already.

Technologies help with dementia

Posted on by under Gerontechnology

Digital Journal has written an op-ed article citing one of my research articles!! You can access my 2012 article, “The future of assistive technology for dementia” as an open-source article through the journal Gerontechnology. You can also read the original op-ed by digitaljournal.com.

Op-Ed: Technology helps families cope with challenges of dementia

By Kimberly Reynolds     Feb 17, 2014 in Technology

The challenges of dementia and other age-related conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease are difficult on the patient, family and caregivers alike. Technology eases the burden.

Continue reading →