Eldercare: Technology

My team leader pointed me in the direction of an interesting article in the Sunday Times about technological solutions to the problem of looking after elders who need a little extra help so they can stay in their own homes as long as practicable. My husband David might find some of the really high-tech stuff interesting, but I’m more interested in the simple, least intrusive solutions. Personal autonomy and empowerment are important, in my view. I’m not interested in an electronic nanny or a computerized tattletale system.

Chicago Tribune | Keeping track of Dad

Clearly the biggest worry associated with much of this technology is the loss of privacy. Philipose, the researcher at the Seattle test apartment, said early demonstrations of the technology revealed that many seniors are very concerned about who would have access to such detailed information about their daily lives. Some insist that they would remove the bracelet–the device necessary to trigger the sensors on objects they touch–when they want privacy. He told the story of one person who said she ate chocolate cake for breakfast and would do whatever necessary to hide that from her children.

Exercising privacy right

At Oatfield Estates, one resident knows well how intrusive technology can sometimes feel. Though Lester “Ray” Croft prefaces his story by calling his daughter a “lovely sweetie,” he describes how one of his children went too far (emphasis mine: need to remember to make this point later) with the family portal and her monitoring of his ever-increasing weight.

“I had to fire her from being able to look in on me,” he said. “Oh, I wasn’t too popular over that for a while.”

Yet the technology can be tweaked to deal with some privacy concerns. The video cameras in the Aware Home, for example, can be programmed to recognize and record only specific events–falls, for example, or medication consumption. And many seniors say they would take comfort in knowing there is the safety net of having someone keep a close eye on them.

“What we are finding is that, by and large, older adults seem willing to trade some measure of privacy in order to have the comfort of staying home,” Rogers said.

Barry Jacobson, who on Thursday afternoon had just finished checking on his father via Oatfield’s family portal, put it like this:

“In 20 or 30 years I’m going to want to know that my family is there watching out for me. At some point it’s not about privacy but about being connected.”

All this is leading up to something I won’t get into just yet, but it’s most convenient to make notes of the information I’m finding out by blogging it. Also: it’s easy to share it with and easy to come back later when it’s needed and find it. By chance I happened to use a category, Connections, that has never been that active, because I didn’t want to use the family-oriented one that might have seemed a more logical choice. I see now that I inadvertently chose the right categorization for the articles and thoughts and links that I’m gathering together.

I’ve got a lot of thoughts whirling around that I’ll eventually be writing up, but not blogging for a while yet. For now, I’m just browsing and gathering.

When I first read this article, I was interested in the high-tech toys, but a little appalled at how a person’s every move could potentially be logged. I think the only time this would ever be appropriate is in the case of an elder who was healthy enough to be at home, but mentally not able to keep themselves safe from harm. And frankly, if an event like a stove being turned on or refrigerator is opened at odd times has to be logged, it’s long past time for them to have in-home nurse-companion care or time for them to be “transitioned,” in the industry term, to a residential care facility of some kind.

And that’s what I’m NOT talking about.

David’s been a good sounding board and we’ve been batting different topics around; I wonder what he’ll think of some of the ‘techery in this article. I’m pretty sure the “portal” idea is out of the question, although it could be cool if it were two way and distant family members could chat so forth, but again… for what I’m working out, it’s not going to be practical.