Living Well Blog » age in place

“IF I ever need to go to a nursing home, kill me first”

Doris Bersing — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 17:35:13 +0000

Aging in Place: You do not need to leave your home!

Given that 89% of people do not want to leave their homes, this statement featured on the article The Technology for Monitoring Elderly Relatives on The New York Times (July 28, 2010) about new technologies to help people stay at their home, makes total sense.

The purpose of many of these technologies is to provide enough supervision to make it possible for elderly people to stay in their homes rather than move to an assisted-living facility or nursing home — a goal almost universally embraced as both emotionally and financially desirable.

New Devices Help Seniors Stay Longer in Their Own Homes.

Doris Bersing — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 20:01:16 +0000

An article supporting Living Well’s high-tech – high touch approach, was published by Health Day: News for Healthier Living on January 18 by Dennis Thompson. The article stresses the importance of using technology to keep seniors for longer and safer: ” Seniors who want to remain in their homes despite illness and infirmity can get a high-tech assist these days. So can their children who might worry about…Sensors, GPS and more are being used to track aging parents’ movements… So can their children who might worry about an elderly parent living alone, often far from family members.

The 1980s-era medical alert pendants made famous by their television advertising (“I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up!”) are now among a wide array of devices that can help keep an eye on aging parents and get them help when they need it.

Available technologies include:

Sensors in the home to track an older person’s movement, from the front door to the medicine cabinet to the refrigerator to the stove. The sensors are linked with computers that can issue alerts when people deviate from their routine.
Global positioning system devices, using the GPS technology that’s become so common in cars, that can help locate someone with dementia who’s wandered from home.
Computerized pillboxes that track whether medication is being taken on time.

10 Essential Ways to Protect Your Home and Family

Doris Bersing — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 03:51:06 +0000

Basic and useful tips for home safety and security: see article.

Home Health Technology Can Help Lower Costs of Senior Care

Doris Bersing — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 21:27:04 +0000

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

Chronic Disease and Improved Healthcare Outcomes Through Telehealth Monitoring

Doris Bersing — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 22:02:53 +0000

As healthcare costs continue to increase, the government’s primary focus has been geared towards inpatient hospital stays for acute or chronic conditions. Acute or chronic conditions that could have been handled on an outpatient basis are the number one area for cost reductions. With the passage of PPACA (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act), Congress gave Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) the authority to penalize hospitals for excess readmission rates starting federal fiscal year (FFY) 2013 where the initial focus will be placed on heart failure (HF), acute myocardial infarction (AMI), and pneumonia. CMS has already begun reporting readmissions rates for these conditions on its Hospital Compare Web site. The implementation of Telehealth services and devices meet care providers’ goals in improving outcomes, avoiding unnecessary readmissions and maintaining patient independence. CMS Telehealth accomplishes this by providing 24 hours a day 7 days a week comprehensive approach to Telehealth in and out-of- home, which includes: complete installation, maintenance, delivery education, training, marketing, distribution and integration of all our products and services, with a 24/7 Central Monitoring Station that is supervised by clinical and technical personnel. Read more

Improving function and safety through Environmental Geriatrics

Doris Bersing — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 19:07:32 +0000

Environmental Geriatrics is the study and application of design principles to interiors and products to optimize the health, function, and well-being of older adults.
Cornell University’s Division of Geriatrics and Gerontology offers resources on Alzheimer’s friendly home, fall and fire prevention, hoarding and cluttering. Learn more.

Aging in Place with Technology

Doris Bersing — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 20:10:09 +0000

The Aging Brain

Doris Bersing — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 16:41:02 +0000

Living Well with memory loss and Alzheimer's

On Episode Six of the Charlie Rose Brain Series, a discussion of the Aging Brain with Brenda Milner of McGill University, Larry Squire of the University of California San Diego, John Hardy of University College London, and Scott Small of Columbia University. Co-hosted by Eric Kandel of Columbia University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, we find easy information for the laymen about what occurs in the aging memory related to memory loss and the developing of Alzheimer’s

See the program

Brain Wellness À la Wii

Doris Bersing — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 22:24:38 +0000

The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As of August 2010, the Wii leads the generation over the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in worldwide sales and in December 2009 broke the record for best-selling console in a single month in the United States.

Nintendo hoped to target a wider demographic with its console. The productions are Nintendo’s first broad-based advertising strategy and include a two-minute video clip showing a varied assortment of people enjoying the Wii system, such as urban apartment-dwellers, country ranchers, grandparents, and parents with their children.The marketing campaign has proved to be successful: pensioners, as old as 103 have been reported to be playing the Wii in the United Kingdom.^. A report by the British newspaper The People also stated that Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain has played using the Wii console!

Now, we have data that the Wii games have brought back feelings of being young again as the participants flex their mental muscles and improve their physical fitness. The Wii is improving the quality of life of many aging seniors.

Diane Carbo, in an article written for Senior Advice, states that “…Healthy aging and a brain fitness program along with the Wii promotes the development of new skills, and helps aging seniors learn from their mistakes. The best part of using the Wii as part of a healthy aging program is the laughter and excitement you see in the faces of the participants. The environment is electric as the aging seniors enjoy familiar interests in a new format. For many seniors it feels like old times again…”

Technologies Help Adult Children Monitor Aging Parents

Doris Bersing — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 23:18:29 +0000

89% 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