Tag Archives: Welfare Technology

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

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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.

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Dementia: A good, safe, and dignified life with welfare technology

Posted on by under Dementia in Denmark, Gerontechnology

Come and hear about welfare technology and dementia! It’s free to join – but you must register before 9 September. I wish that I could attend, but unfortunately will be busy that day. If you are attending, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

Dementia:  A good, safe, and dignified life with welfare technology 

Come to Welfare Tech’s themed event on dementia. We set the focus on welfare technology solutions that create a good, safe, and dignified life for people with dementia. The events of the day will address the needs of both the person with dementia, the relatives as carers, and present the solutions available on the market. Continue reading →

Demens: Et godt, trygt og værdigt liv med velfærdsteknologi

Posted on by under Dementia in Denmark, Gerontechnology, På dansk

Kom og hør om velfærdsteknologi og demens! Det er gratis at deltage – men du skal registrere før 9 September. Jeg ønsker, at jeg kunne deltage, men desværre vil være optaget den dag. Hvis du deltager, så lad os vide dine tanker i kommentarerne nedenfor!

Demens:  Et godt, trygt og værdigt liv med velfærdsteknologi 

Kom til Welfare Tech´s temaarrangement om demens. Vi sætter fokus på velfærdsteknologiske løsninger, der skaber et godt, trygt og værdigt liv for mennesker med demens. Dagen adresserer behovene hos såvel den demente, de pårørende som plejepersonalet og præsenterer tilgængelige løsninger på en markedsplads. Continue reading →

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 help manage neurological disorders

Posted on by under Gerontechnology

I have written other posts on wearables that would be appropriate for dementia care, family carers, and useful for research. So when I came across this post on MedCity News, I was excited to share it. It seems that a lot of the wearables, while they certainly have a focus on health, don’t focus on people with dementia. And, while this article doesn’t focus on dementia, either, I think that the technology under development addresses neurological disorders, which can lead to a further understanding of how wearables can support life with dementia.

Wearables help manage neurological disorders, predict symptoms

By NEIL VERSEL Aug 11, 2015

Continue reading →

Danish legislation on GPS and dementia

Posted on by under Dementia in Denmark, Gerontechnology

This article comes to us from Stella Care. Stella Care is a Danish company that solves social problems by using and further developing proven technology, so it can be used for purposes other than originally intended. They specialize in offering small GPS trackers suitable for people with dementia. The article by Stella Care is originally in Danish (you can access it by clicking on the title, below), and I have translated and edited the article into English. 

Legislation on GPS for people with dementia (and Stella Cares role)

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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 →

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

Ældre Sagen: Brugervenlighed frem for besparelser

Posted on by under Dementia in Denmark, På dansk

Ældre Sagen: Brugervenlighed frem for besparelser

Altinget: velfærdsteknologi

28. april 2015 

DEBAT: Digitaliseringen af det offentlige skal ikke kun handle om besparelser. Det er derfor glædeligt, at der med den nye digitaliseringsstrategi er kommet mere fokus på, hvordan digitaliseringen kan skabe værdi for borgerne, skriver Bjarne Hastrup, direktør i Ældre Sagen.

Af Bjarne Hastrup
Direktør i Ældre Sagen

Nu er vi inden længe ved vejs ende af den nuværende fællesoffentlige digitaliseringsstrategi, og en ny strategi skal se dagens lys.

Jeg har bemærket, at der er sket et skifte i, hvordan formålet med at digitalisere det offentlige bliver omtalt.

Tidligere var der et stort fokus på de millioner, det offentlige hvert år kunne spare, hvis blot borgerne begyndte at kommunikere digitalt med de offentlige myndigheder. Til min glæde hører jeg, at der i forbindelse med arbejdet med den nye strategi i højere grad bliver talt om, hvordan digitaliseringen kan skabe værdi for borgerne og virksomhederne i Danmark.

Se, det er det helt rigtige fokus at have i forbindelse med udarbejdelse af den nye strategi. Selv finansministeren har udtalt, at det ikke altid kun handler om penge, hvilket jeg er meget enig med ham i. Så må vi håbe, at det ikke bare bliver ved snakken, men faktisk også viser sig ved opfyldelse af nye strategiske mål.

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 →

Technology: Idify for reminiscence

Posted on by under Dementia in Denmark, Gerontechnology

Idify is a Danish company that has developed a reminiscence platform to be used by people with dementia. They hope to bring their product to the American market as well. You can check out their website for more information, give it a test run, or to purchase the service.

Jeg har også skrivet om Idify på dansk, du kan læse mit indlæg her.

Continue reading →