About half of all women will experience urinary tract infections in their lifetimes, and despite treatment, about a quarter will develop recurrent infections within six months of initial infection.
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The most common neurological diseases cost the United States $789 billion in 2014, and this figure is projected to grow as the elderly population doubles between 2011 and 2050, according to a new…
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March madness – a plethora of posts – a newsletter recapping them. So many topics mandated a discussion, some analysis or insight. So the unusually long month of March meant an unusually long list of seven blog posts, including several involving examinations of data and new terminology (the paid Caregiver Support Ratio (pCSR), for example) that invite scrutiny and can be very useful for companies in the age-related market segments. As March winds to a close, here are the month’s posts, of particular use to those who didn’t see them at the time of posting – each of these is summarized with the full link in the heading.
Introducing the paid Caregiver Support Ratio (pCSR) – quantified by region. As AARP predicted in 2013, by the time the boomers arrive in their 80’s, just nine years from now, there would be a population deficit of prospective care providers aged 46-64 – the caregiver support ratio (CSR). But perhaps the more intriguing question – where are the workers who could, should, or would provide care? In a study released in December 2015, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) stated that the compound annual growth rate for home care services, particularly personal care aides, between 2014 and 2024 would be nearly five percent, the highest among all industries. Compare the number of workers that provide direct care ( for example, personal care aides) to retail – these jobs are low-paying at approximately $11/hour and most would say the work is physically more difficult than other low-paying categories. And tech-enabling the care, while streamlining sourcing and tracking, does not close the available labor gap.
Baby Boomers, Wearable and Mobile Health Tech – A status report. During 2015, the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF) sponsored a research project to evaluate the future likelihood of wearable and mobile health tech. This Boomers and Wearable Health Tech 2015 report considered wearables and health apps -- and the likelihood of these technologies helping baby boomers (the oldest is now 71 and 6 years along with Medicare) manage their own care and avoid unnecessary services and costs. After all, the mobile health app market alone was predicted in 2013 to reach $26 billion by 2017. Consider the status of each of these predictions – which were based on 21 expert interviews held during 2015. Were the experts correct or overly optimistic? Both.
The Market Overview of Technology – the 2017 trend summary. The marketplace of products and services today is still fragmented, with ever-shifting cottage industries comprised largely of startups, challenged by channel complexity and end user resistance. But with fragments assembled into an overall puzzle, this business for boomers and beyond has been estimated by some to grow to $20 billion by 2020 or even $30 billion by 2017. The larger market will be based on growing boomer awareness and aging. It will be strikingly different from today – fueled the growing availability of in-car technology, mobile PERS health integration, wearable fitness and health devices, in-home ‘Voice First’ IoT hubs and smart phone apps.
Six new technology offerings – March, 2017. How tough is it to highlight tech innovation that could help older adults? Pretty tough, judging by the accelerator pitch event winners at the South by Southwest (SXSW) conference (etcetera) held this week in Austin. Even the hearing-loss tech winner, Sound Scouts, was pitched as a screening tool for children. And no joke, one of the winners, Laugh.ly, was a streaming app for stand-up comedy. Yay! So here are new tech offerings drawn from those listed in the 2017 Technology Market Overview. Content is from their company websites.
Consider the Gallup-Healthways survey about community well-being. Naples, Florida, is at the top. Really? Perhaps this caught your eye last week when you saw the Gallup survey about well-being. For those who missed it, the survey ranked well-being of adults 18 and older in a community (town) by specific factors -- Purpose, Social, Financial, Community, and Physical. At the highest level, Naples was followed by the town of Barnstable on Cape Cod. Consider that the attribute ‘Physical,’ for example, meant “Having good health and enough energy to get things done daily.” So look past the survey. These towns are comparatively wealthy by national measures -- the median income for a household in Naples is $66K and for those over age 75, it is $71K. For Barnstable, median income is $62.1K – and note that 20% of the Barnstable population is 65+, higher than the 135 national percentage. In Naples, the median age is 60 and an eye-popping 42% of the population is aged 65+.
Smartphone usage – not just Pew – introducing actual US Census numbers. You have seen older people with their smartphones – they’re in concert halls and restaurants staring at their screens, fascinated -- scrolling through emails, studying photos, watching videos, seated next to other 80-somethings, who might be envious, texting on their very, uh, compact feature phones. Says Pew Research of their 2016 survey data: 42% of the 65+ population have smartphones. Not surprisingly, only 7% of that population fit the Pew definition of smartphone dependent -- that is 'reliant on their smartphone for Internet access.' Juxtaposed with Pew’s tracked history of Internet access over 15 years, for the 65+ population, as of 2016, 64% of these smartphone owners are users of the Internet.
Aging in America – a trio of events. Aging in America annually hosts innovators and technologists for helping older adults. The conference seesaws between west coasts (San Francisco 2018) and the windy city of Chicago, where it was this year – offering up a full program of sessions across the week of March 20-24. Bookending this conference, which offers Continuing Education Units (CEUs) for social service professionals, was What's Next Boomer Summit and the Aging 2.0 Chicago Pitch Event. The Pitch winner was i65, a tool to help professionals provide guidance on Medicare. That event also included TeleCalm – an intriguing telephone service to help block unwanted calls, including a tool for caregivers to create a trusted list of callers.
Music therapy has been found to decrease pain in patients recovering from spine surgery, compared to a control group of patients who received standard postoperative care alone.
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved Zejula (niraparib) for the maintenance treatment (intended to delay cancer growth) of adult patients with recurrent epithelial ovarian,…
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved Zejula (niraparib) for the maintenance treatment (intended to delay cancer growth) of adult patients with recurrent epithelial ovarian,…
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Aging in America – hosting innovators and technologists for helping older adults. The conference seesaws between west coasts (San Francisco 2018) and the windy city of Chicago, where it was this year – offering up a full program of sessions across the week of March 20-24. Bookending this conference, which offers Continuing Education Units (CEUs) for social service professionals, was What's Next Boomer Summit and the Aging 2.0 Chicago Pitch Event. The Pitch winner was i65, a tool to help professionals provide guidance on Medicare. That event also included TeleCalm – an intriguing telephone service to help block unwanted calls, including a tool for caregivers to create a trusted list of callers.
American Society on Aging 2017 – many same, with a few standouts. Consider new offerings from Project Lifesaver PL-1000 for rescuing wanderers, announced in 2015 and displayed at Aging in America 2017. Or the exhibit of Hasbro’s Joy for All pets – cat and dog – now deployed in senior housing, health care and in-home. Or Panasonic’s Link2cell telephone – which has a function that amplifies and slows down speech in real time. Or Hamilton CapTel, a phone for captioning telephone conversations for individuals with hearing loss. Or CDW Healthcare, helping senior housing organizations deploy technology for residents and staff.
What’s Next? A Periodic Table for technology-supported aging. Consider Mary Furlong’s 14th What’s Next Boomer Business Summit 2017 – quite a speaker lineup – with multiple standouts. Note IBM Watson’s Lillian Myers discussed and has described in March, 2017 and plans to flesh out in more detail. This was far more refined in sub-categories than Joe Coughlin’s Maslow’s Hierarchy or, for that matter, categories from the 2017 Market Overview for Technology. Her presentation was at an event that included key insights from David Weigelt, VP for Innovation at the leading US Home Care company, Home Instead – who offered a vision for far-more engaged and emotional connection between in-home care workers, families and care recipients. And note Charlotte Yeh, Chief Medical Officer for AARP Services, who has a broad-based, determined way to address and mitigate loneliness among older adults.
Sponsors, speakers, and exhibitors are all advocates for seniors. At each of these events, it's notable to see the level of commitment to innovations and go-to-market channels to reach older adults. Traditional home care firms like Comfort Keepers and Home Instead, or newer offerings like CareLinx, Care.com and home service startup Envoy, or tech-enabled SeniorLink, GreatCall's acquisition of predictive analytics provider Healthsense, or long-time tech stalwarts like iN2L and GrandCare. A long time in this tech industry is a mere decade, plus or minus a few years. As the baby boomers cross their seventy-first year, with 20 years of newly quantified life expectancies and challenging home settings, technology firms will emerge that help families and service providers serve them well.
Pain reduction aimed at reducing disc inflammation doesn’t last, study finds
Source: HealthDay
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Pain reduction aimed at reducing disc inflammation doesn’t last, study finds
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On the positive side, smartphone ownership for older adults is up. You have seen older people with their smartphones – they’re in concert halls and restaurants staring at their screens, fascinated -- scrolling through emails, studying photos, watching videos, seated next to other 80-somethings, who might be envious, texting on their very, uh, compact feature phones. Says Pew Research of their 2016 survey data: 42% of the 65+ population have smartphones. Not surprisingly, only 7% of that population fit the Pew definition of smartphone dependent -- that is 'reliant on their smartphone for Internet access.' Juxtaposed with Pew’s tracked history of Internet access over 15 years, for the 65+ population, as of 2016, 64% of these smartphone owners are users of the Internet.
There’s more to this smartphone ownership story – and it is in the US Census. Pew is an excellent benchmark for technology change over time. But the US Census samples smartphone ownership through its American Community Survey (ACS), which segments age bands of 65+ (total population of 47.7 million), within that age 75+ (a subset population of 20 million), and within that, age 80+ (a subset population of 11.9 million). And not only is ownership of smartphones (labeled a handheld device) among older adults growing – we now know that these smartphone users have data plans. Following the 2008 Broadband Improvement Act, questions about ownership of a handheld device, different than a tablet (Question 9) and subscription to the Internet (Question 10) were added to the American Community Survey in 2013 -- the responses to these questions were last updated in 2015 based on a rolling survey across that year. This data was made available for analysis during November of 2016.
Figure: American Community Survey 2015: smartphone ownership by age band
The census shows that drivers of smartphone ownership are predictable. In the 65+ population overall, the most recently available Census data confirms what one might suspect. Those who are married and have higher incomes are more likely to own a smartphone. And perhaps married couples each have a smartphone – the ACS only attributes smartphone ownership to a household. Examining the population aged 65+ living in households with incomes $75K or greater, 66% of those households have a smartphone. Conversely, those in households with incomes under $30K, only 23% have smartphones. And the ACS indicates that 33% of the 75+ age range and 27% of the 80+ have a smartphone in their household. What does this mean when smartphone prices range from $400-800 (just for the phone) and the data plan can run as much as $80+ per month per phone, depending on activity? It means that the digital divide is a very wide, income-driven chasm. Keeping and using this data-consuming device following the earning years, let alone into the aged 75+ low net-worth years, may just be impossible.
What’s also worrisome – the smartphone’s security is a gaping hole. According to Pew’s latest note on smartphone security, most smartphone owners (72%) have lock screens on their phones, but "owners ages 65 and older are much less likely than adults younger than 65 to use a screen lock and regularly update their phone’s apps and operating system (13% vs. 23%)." And 8% of the smartphone users aged 65+ take no actions to secure their smartphones. Besides Pew, AARP recently surveyed technology use among older adults, actually breaking out the population aged 70+ (29%) among its responders base. AARP TeK offers video training on how to perform various tasks on a smartphone. The organization’s website has posted warnings about how to 'cyberproof’ your phone. This advice also needs to be covered in videos and in-person training sessions by AARP as we'll see this week -- at a number of American Society on Aging conference sessions.
Consider the Gallup-Healthways survey about community well-being. Naples, Florida, is at the top. Really? Perhaps this caught your eye last week when you saw the Gallup survey about well-being. For those who missed it, the survey ranked well-being of adults 18 and older in a community (town) by specific factors -- Purpose, Social, Financial, Community, and Physical. At the highest level, Naples was followed by the town of Barnstable on Cape Cod. Consider that the attribute ‘Physical,’ for example, meant “Having good health and enough energy to get things done daily.” So look past the survey. These towns are comparatively wealthy by national measures -- the median income for a household in Naples is $66K and for those over age 75, it is $71K. For Barnstable, median income is $62.1K – and note that 20% of the Barnstable population is 65+, higher than the 135 national percentage. In Naples, the median age is 60 and an eye-popping 42% of the population is aged 65+.
But is all going to be a state of well-being for older adults? Let’s think about Naples and Barnstable in another context. A few years ago, AARP published a census-based research report about the future of available caregivers for baby boomers – describing a Caregiver Support Ratio – the availability of people aged 46-64 to provide care for the population aged 80+. They noted that this was particularly worrisome for the year 2026 and beyond -- when baby boomers age into their 80s. Examining this Caregiver Support Ratio (CSR) for the current US population aged 80+ by census counties, we posted a separate report listing the 100 counties that had the most notable problem in 2013 – the fewest people aged 46-64 in comparison to the population aged 80+. That analysis was titled Stranded by Geography -- guess which counties sorted as # 11 and # 17 of the top 100 – that is, the counties with the fewest available people aged 46-64 to care for the largest group of seniors? Collier County, where Naples is and Barnstable County, where the town of Barnstable is located.
Now consider the census-derived paid caregiver population. The availability of paid caregivers (paid Caregiver Support Ratio, or pCSR) – it is not good for either county. Consider Collier County, home of Naples, where there are 470 census-identified individuals with the caregiver job code – in a population of 23,959 people aged 80+. That’s a pCSR of 46.7, the number of clients per available worker. Can one worker handle 46.7 seniors in a geography of 2,305 square miles? And even for Barnstable County, the ratio is ‘better’ at 23.4 – but is it feasible in a county of 1,306 square miles? Note that where you look for survey information, that is the survey information you will find. These counties might be chock full of delighted and happy people – the Gallup-Healthways survey does not make it easy to figure out their actual ages. But the census does not lie – a large population of people on the far side of 80 has created worker shortages -- or job opportunities -- for the young and able-bodied. Today, Collier County’s unemployment rate is apparently 4.5 and Barnstable’s is 3.5%.
The psychological stress that surgeons face is well-documented. Less understood is the physical stress they endure from spending hours in awkward positions in the operating room.
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The psychological stress that surgeons face is well-documented. Less understood is the physical stress they endure from spending hours in awkward positions in the operating room.
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How tough is it to highlight tech innovation that could help older adults? Pretty tough, judging by the accelerator pitch event winners at the South by Southwest (SXSW) conference (etcetera) held this week in Austin. Even the hearing-loss tech winner, Sound Scouts, was pitched as a screening tool for children. And no joke, one of the winners, Laugh.ly, was a streaming app for stand-up comedy. Yay! So prior to next week's older-adult events in Chicago, here are new tech offerings drawn from those listed in the 2017 Technology Market Overview. Content is from their company websites:
August Home. "The August Smart Lock, August Smart Keypad and August Doorbell Cam, create the complete Smart Home Access Solution allowing people to manage their front door from anywhere. The August Smart Lock turns a smartphone into a smart key where consumers can lock and unlock their door, create virtual keys for guests, and keep track of who comes and goes with a 24/7 activity log. The August Smart Keypad also lets users create unique entry codes for family, friends and service providers to unlock an August Smart Lock without a traditional key or smartphone. The August Doorbell Cam lets consumers see and speak with visitors at the door, from anywhere, using a smartphone." Learn more at August Home.
Clarity TV Listener. "The TV Listener Wireless Headphones allow you to listen to your TV, Stereo, Radio, or any other audio source at a volume that is comfortable for you without disturbing others in the room. Whether you are hard of hearing or simply want to watch television when someone else is sleeping, TV Listener Headphones are the ideal choice. The TV Listener Wireless Headphones utilize infrared technology." Learn more at Clarity Life.
CareJOY. "CareJOY is a growing online in-home care platform and professional caregiver matchmaking marketplace. This means that families can benefit from the ability to pick and choose exactly what they want from their caregiver. Family members are not only able to find caregivers close to home but also those who enjoy the same activities, music, food and more. CareJOY empowers families to easily find, hire, manage and pay licensed caregivers online. With the help of the CareJOY platform, families and caregivers alike will be able to manage scheduling, time tracking, care coordination and payment processes." Learn more at CareJOY.
Hasbro JoyForAll Pets. "JOY FOR ALL Companion Pets are designed to bring comfort, companionship and fun to elder loved ones. With realistic fur and pet-like sounds, as well as sensors that respond to petting and hugs with familiar pet-like actions, Companion Pets deliver a soothing, joyful experience that inspire smiles, laughter and fond memories for people of all ages." Learn more at Hasbro.
iKeyp Safe. "The product primarily serves two pillars from which its guiding principles have been be built. The first pillar, and foremost in the design, is to keep medication convenient and safe – where people typically take their medication – either in the bathroom, kitchen, bedroom or office. The second pillar is to improve medication adherence. With the iKeyp, a user no longer has to store medication out of reach, hide it somewhere in the home or keep it locked away inconveniently in a traditional safe." Learn more at iKeyp.
ViewClix Smart Frame. “It has a large, 15.6 inch High Definition display for displaying family photos and video chats. Because the ViewClix Smart Frame is always connected, we made sure that all of its features can be easily, remotely managed by a family member or friend. Because some seniors don't have access to a Wi-Fi network, we offer a very reasonably priced 4G mobile connection option for ViewClix. For great coverage, our mobile connection option is delivered on the T-Mobile network.” Learn more at ViewClix.
For millions of sufferers, there is nothing more debilitating than chronic back or joint pain. It can feel like a lifetime of misery.
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For millions of sufferers, there is nothing more debilitating than chronic back or joint pain. It can feel like a lifetime of misery.
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As we approach the date for the upcoming week of March 20-24 in Chicago, it is worth noting a few trends. The marketplace of products and services today is still fragmented, with ever-shifting cottage industries comprised largely of startups, challenged by channel complexity and end user resistance. But with fragments assembled into an overall puzzle, this business for boomers and beyond has been estimated by some to grow to $20 billion by 2020 or even $30 billion by 2017. The larger market will be based on growing boomer awareness and aging. It will be strikingly different from today – fueled the growing availability of in-car technology, mobile PERS health integration, wearable fitness and health devices, in-home ‘Voice First’ IoT hubs and smart phone apps. In particular:
Voice-first interfaces will dominate apps and devices. We are still downloading apps, that era may end. Instead we will be experimenting with personal assistants or AI-enabled voice first technologies (Siri, Google Home, Amazon Alexa, Cortana) which can act as mini service provider interfaces – find an appointment, a ride, song, a restaurant, a hotel, an airplane seat. Technology survivors may be voice-inappropriate tools for social networking, mapping, camera, and news. And there are a continuing wave of behavior modification apps, which currently seem to come and go with the tides of marketing hype – stop smoking, get moving, avoid too much sun, drink more water. Maybe your doctor will prescribe an app – many Silicon Valley startups folk believe (or hope) this will happen – but doctors are not quite convinced.
Internet of Things (IoT) replaces sensor-based categories. The sensor-based home monitoring market that crested in 2008 was an early example of the possibilities that evolved later. Nearly a decade later, small sensors and tags, as well as the hubs that can detect and monitor them are becoming mainstream. This Internet of (smarter) Things, or IoT, encompasses stick-on tags that transmit location, smart devices like wall plugs, thermostats, light bulbs, and even pet feeders. These can be managed through configurable home hubs like Google Home and Amazon Echo. Will these voice-first hubs become their own home control ecosystems?
Niche hardware will fade away – long live software and training. In 2017, will senior-focused hardware survive accelerating technology change? Yes, if it mitigates a health-related condition (hearing, dexterity or vision loss). Otherwise, we will see software that will make hardware platform choices hidden or irrelevant. Will senior phones and tablets survive or will seniors choose custom or assistive configurations on standard phones? And will tablets (even ones for seniors) be swept aside by ever-larger smartphones? Some will buy specialty devices like grandPad or Breezie, but most seniors will be trained to use standard tablets or more likely learn more about their smartphones in the store or at workshops for standard off-the-shelf products.
Tech-enabled home care pressures traditional homecare providers – or does it? Can $200 million of VC investment be wrong – or premature? 2015 saw investors begin a swoon for tech-enabled home care providers. Then in January, 2016, AARP/Parks Associates sized the caregiving innovation frontier at $279 billion. The fact that these occurred within a single year will push self-scrutiny within the home care agencies and franchises, those that rely mostly on people to do background checking, staff to match need with worker, and managers to track work. These other successful home care providers may wonder and fret – is 2017 the year they must offer 'tech-enabled' care? What exactly is tech-enabled care? And what will it be in the future?
“Health Tech” replaces “Digital Health,” begins acknowledging aging. In a recent MobiHealth News webinar, founder Brian Dolan observed that Digital Health as a category was being replaced in 2016 and beyond with the term Health Tech. This sensible change reflects the disappearance of some investment money for the mHealth, cHealth (for Connected) and the other ‘xHealths’ in favor of institutional technology (and budgets) for hospital/health systems, medical practices, and related IT departments. Note that HiMSS does have a Long-term Care Roundtable that focuses on IT for the post-acute and possibly tech-enabled world of Medicare patients.
Robotics and virtual reality will continue -- as experiments. The press loves to write about robots and seniors (see Brookdale). Still at the anecdote stage, widespread use of care-related robots in the home or in senior living communities hasn’t happened. Instead, robotic pets are growing in popularity in senior communities and private homes – limited care, nofeeding required, plus the possibility of a comfort to seniors who feel isolated or may have dementia. During 2016, virtual reality experiences entered the experiment ring of another Brookdale senior living via an MIT startup that plans to charge a subscription fee for usage.
See you in Chicago March 21-24 at Aging in America and What's Next Boomer Summit. And of course, read the full 2017 Market Overview report here!
Baby Boomers, Wearable and Mobile Health Tech – A status report. During 2015, the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF) sponsored a research project to evaluate the future likelihood of wearable and mobile health tech. This Boomers and Wearable Health Tech 2015 report considered wearables and health apps -- and the likelihood of these technologies helping baby boomers (the oldest is now 71 and 6 years along with Medicare) manage their own care and avoid unnecessary services and costs. After all, the mobile health app market alone was predicted in 2013 to reach $26 billion by 2017. Consider the status of each of these predictions – which were based on 21 expert interviews held during 2015. Were the experts correct or overly optimistic? Both. Here are the 2015 predictions and what has happened since:
Apps and gadgets will be better suited to boomers. The next version of health apps and devices will have readable directions, easy-to-use interfaces, customizable health advice, and right-sized buttons. Providers will look closely at tech training programs like AARP TEK, which recently launched an online learning site, AARP TEK Academy. New offerings will treat protecting data privacy as mission critical – hoping to stay out of the increasingly focused laser beam of government officials and regulation.
ARE WE THERE YET? Not quite. A study conducted one year later concluded that health apps were not all that usable -- "participants were able to complete only half of the data entry tasks—such as entering a blood glucose level." And a University of Michigan study from December 2016 observed that apps usability was still a problem and that apps were not serving the populations most in need of them – those with chronic diseases and the elderly: "Only 28 of these 137 apps reacted appropriately when the reviewers entered a dangerous value."
Internet service providers will lower the cost of connection. Following the FCC’s May (2015) proposal, there are other Internet service providers that have programs to lower the cost of data plans, including Comcast’s Internet Essentials, and a proposed plan from AT&T that was announced as part of its merger with DirectTV.
ARE WE THERE YET? Getting there. But carriers and tech companies don’t really want that to happen. So by late 2016, a majority of baby boomers owned smartphones. New devices are faster, so some sites, notably Facebook, changed their focus to promote video over text. Then users inadvertently consumed more data on their devices, overriding benefits from discounted plans, no matter the provider – or whether the plan is, as is likely, a so-called 'unlimited' plan. At $40/month per device, looking at just AT&T’s plan, that means $40/month for one smartphone, another $40 for a tablet, plus another $10 for a smartwatch. That’s $90 per month. And that doesn’t count inclusion in this deal, as AT&T hopes, for a TV as well. But some say the need for Wifi disappears.
Governments will further incent adoption through reimbursement. The introduction of new payment (CPT) codes within Medicare made 2015 a banner year for telehealth reimbursement. The new codes have resulted in a proliferation of apps, although adoption to date has been limited, and apps for diabetes management were not included. State-by-state, parity is required for Medicaid reimbursement of telehealth.
ARE WE THERE YET? No. In terms of uptake of telehealth and video visits as an alternative to face-to-face for Medicare and Medicaid recipients, not really that close, according to a 2016 CMS report. Telehealth companies are ramping up the hard sell, making the case to convince doctors and other providers. Self-promoting healthcare providers tout 2017 as THE year, maybe at a Boston Children’s hospital. Telehealth is one of the recommendations from the PCAST report about tech-based improvements for baby boomers – published in March of 2016.
Devices will be pre-configured, loaded with data, and delivered to the most vulnerable. In 2015, IBM partnered with Apple to provide iPads to 5 million older adults in Japan, reaching them through the country’s postal service. Many of the 22 pre-loaded apps focused on health and other services. In the US, health care providers will consider a similar initiative for patients with complex health conditions and care regimens. Targeting will be based on age, health status, and ability to use the device.
ARE WE THERE YET? For iPads, in Japan, maybe – not so much here. In the US, there is no sign that Apple officially offers a customized iPad for seniors. IBM has partnered with SimpleC to offer software (likely for use on multiple devices) to engage care recipients and assist providers and families with dementia care. As for Apple, it has ended support for the iPad2, which means no more security updates. So older iPads are not even close to being secure from hackers – what happens now to the enormous installed base of older adults? The specialty senior tablet makers like Breezie and grandPad continue to benefit from Apple’s limited demonstrated interest in the US older adult market.
Companies with access to people’s homes will incorporate sensors. Some cable, appliance, automotive, and consumer packaged goods (CPG) firms will see the opportunity to add home-based features to their offerings. Unity Stokes, of StartUp Health: “The lines will blur between ‘this is health’ and ‘this is something I use in my home.’ Companies with access to the home – cable, appliance, automotive and CPG will incorporate sensors – giving the device for free.”
ARE WE THERE YET? Not even close. According to Forrester Research as of 6 months ago, only 6 % of homes have a smart-home device. And Gartner's March 6 survey announcement demonstrates that connected home devices are still limited to early adopters. No rush, since hackers may be motivated to hack your home devices, but may do so just because they can. With trouble enough just managing multiple updates for smartphones and tablets, avoiding the Internet of Things within the home is smart. And pay attention to the Amazon Echo privacy concerns along with those for the newer Google Home.
Watches will eventually replace clip-on wearables – first for the young, later for boomers. The sales curve for fitness wearables is flattening, but smartwatches, fueled by a year of media hype about Apple’s introduction, will begin to take off among the most fashion-conscious, rising to 9% penetration within the next year, according to NPD Group. Like other technology adoption trends, however, there will be a significant lag in adoption by boomers, especially those with dexterity issues who find the user interface unreadable or buttons too small or difficult to use.
ARE WE THERE YET? Not at all, actually. Sales are really down. Smartwatches need an overhaul for the general market, where boredom and abandonment rule. As for sharing of health data from smartwatches or fitness devices, users don’t understand where their data might be going or what privacy issues may be associated with their device.
Predictive analytics will be proven to improve care and avoid costs. Health tech vendors see promise in both data integration and the resulting ability to predict who might need care and when. Philips’ CareSage, introduced in 2015, combines use of a wearable Personal Emergency Response Service (PERS) with health status data, enabling an alert to a health provider before the patient has the fall that puts them back into the hospital. Other device vendors will see an opportunity to avert future admissions by linking information from devices with population heath information and profiles of individuals at risk.
ARE WE THERE YET? Getting there. Looks Philips is just one of many tech players entering the ring during 2016 to help healthcare providers avoid readmissions of Medicare patients: see Medisolv, Conance and Allina Health – and now, we even have a list of questions journalists should ask about whether predictive analytics actually helps.
Study disputes weather’s role in knee and back pain
Source: HealthDay
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Patients who took NSAIDs were also 2.5 times more likely to suffer gastrointestinal side effects
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Over the course of their lives, about 80 percent of Americans will suffer from back pain at one time or another.
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Review of 12 studies found small improvements in pain levels, function after 3 to 6 months
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