Real Seniors lack essential technology – who will make it happen in 2019?

When Pew stops tracking senior adoption, does that imply a market saturated? Rant on. Note this Fact Tank aggregation of technology adoption statistics (tech overall among seniors, last reported in 2016) – and the most recent data cited on Internet use, seniors were quoted in a 2016 survey, 44% of responders did not use the internet users. Of those that do, older adults aged 65+ said they had little to no confidence in their ability to use electronic devices to perform online tasks.  Let’s think about their non-confidence (not broken down into the 65-74) and the 75+ who are the Real Seniors. 

Does that fear imply lack of training? Or too much media reporting about scams, breaches, and identity theft – most of which it is difficult to detect and nearly impossible to prevent? Who knows, since Pew appears to be largely done – after all, they note, 89% of Americans are online and they do not survey all questions each time. AARP published a survey last year that included responders in their 70s -- we stay tuned for the next update.

Are those who should care about this not doing enough? Here are questions to ponder moving into 2019 for those whose job, business, or non-profit organization is explicitly to help seniors go online (you know who you are):

• For seniors, why is there a problem with non-use?  Note the research from Michigan State cited in an AARP article: "Greater technology use was associated with better self-rated health, fewer chronic conditions, higher subjective well-being and lower depression." The study also found that technology use reduced feelings of loneliness. And let’s not forget how many services can be discovered and accessed online, including scheduled food delivery, transportation requests, buying tickets and signing up for local events. And have we mentioned online banking, accessing Social Security information, buying savings bonds – all online.

• Are there still senior centers or organizations that do not have high speed internet?   You know where they are – maybe they haven’t figured out the right source of grants, like, for example, Grantmakers in Aging? Senior centers are partially funded by the Older Americans Act – which also provides Meals on Wheels. But there is nothing in the Act (beyond partial funding of senior centers) that specifies professionally delivered training of seniors on technology use or supporting seniors in their usage.  

• Why isn’t technology training of seniors required to be delivered by professionals?  Is it because it is viewed as non-essential because it is ‘free’?  The Geek Squad isn’t free, but why is there no magnanimous donor focused on helping seniors who could fund a regular visit of several hours to a library, senior center or other community center who could help individual older adults during designated hours with their devices?  AARP pays for training it offers in its regional workshops, which is free to participants.  Presumably organizations like OATS, expanding outside of NYC (but still reaching a small percentage of seniors), must use grants to pay trainers to do the offered training, which is free to attendees.

• So why isn’t ‘volunteer’ training good enough? Because at today’s pace of technology change, it can’t be. Read the list of Geek Squad services again.  Or look at another nationwide competitor, HelloTech (ads bash Geek Squad) or Bask or many paid services in various geographies. You hopefully get what you pay for. Free training may be well-intentioned – and it is appropriate in stores of carriers who provide the connectivity. But it is very expensive to stay current with the myriad of always-shipping new devices and OS variations and upgrades, required to keep a device secure. Add the difficulty (and costs) of getting an operational router, high speed internet printing from multiple devices, streaming from devices. 

• Smart phones for seniors: why can’t every Real Senior have one? And no, it’s not to read text messages heads down and fall into a manhole – nor is it about the social media company that cannot be named. Smartphones are useful in so many ways that without one, day-to-day life and flexibility are circumscribed.  GPS turn-by-turn directions, research about what’s nearby when traveling, renting a car, checking reviews before eating in a restaurant or checking into a hotel, for starters.  And that doesn’t count emergency advice from WebMD or Mayo Clinic.  So that brings me to:

• Why isn’t there a senior discount to get a smartphone?  No, I am not talking about the cell phone plans.  Senior discounts are offered in at least 180 categories. But what about 50% discount an iPhone or Galaxy S9 – to get them into the 21^st century of their grandchildren, assuming that other infrastructure is available to help them (in-store training, upgrade assistance, and on and on.) 

•  When will everyone have a voice-activated TV remote?  Voice-activation and control will surely be standard for smart TVs, but sites that cater to seniors aren’t sources for finding them.  Nor is there any apparent interest in re-engineering older remotes to support voice input. Why not?

Baby boomers cross 73 in 2019, becoming Real Seniors in 2 years.  They will likely live, on average another 10-15 years or more.  For the next 18 years, the growth in the number of Real Seniors will continue.  Shortages of in-home care workers are worsening, new, hopefully tech-enhanced services are already forming. Senior living firms, meanwhile, are over-expanding to accommodate them, hopefully in communities with high speed internet and WiFi access everywhere. For all of the Real Seniors to be, now’s the time to tech-enable their future, don’t you think? Let’s not keep having this conversation for the next 18 years. Rant off.

category tags: 

Seniors, seniors and aging policy, computers, internet and social networking, cell phones, smartphones

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from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/real-seniors-lack-essential-technology-who-will-make-it-happen-2019

From Phishing to Smishing -- a scam for all seasons

Scammers are creative – each cell phone number is 'smishing' opportunity.  How about a text message with a picture of the sender, someone you know, pitching a fund-raising and time-limited opportunity – in a category the recipient knows well.  Except that it is fake, finding the phone number because it is widely distributed. And as an added bonus, the sender extracts the picture from now-accessible contacts (easily scraped from LinkedIn, press releases, Gmail messages, etc.).  Scammers seize the opportunity and send you a very believable text message.

Après the hoax, naturally, the deluge of advice. Naturally, there is new advice on avoiding scams via text messages on cell phones (charmingly called Smishing). Inc. offers up some advice, and a USA Today article offers some even more ad-ridden advice “you’re sharing your phone number too frequently." But 53.9% of Americans are wireless-only homes. What other number are people going to share? For the rightfully suspicious, check out Hoax-Slayer (!) advice to work harder to verify the identity of the sender. Alas, here are previous blog posts about scams, perhaps the ultimate in "peak-innovation." Read again and reflect:

Robocalls and scams – a phone-based war against us all. Many years ago, when the phone rang, we eagerly picked it up. That was then. For good or ill, families want to text, message and chat. And the phone call has turned into a source of harassment and scams. Robocalling is a modern torment, sometimes multiple back-to-back dials from the same source, often spoofing our own cell phone numbers – where answering the phone puts us on a ‘sucker list’ sold to other scammers. Is it Rachel from Cardmember Services or the IRS Phone Scam,  a fake carpet cleaning offer or worse, the disabled veterans scam, or the grandparent 'this is your grandson' scam? Read more.

Scaring seniors – the hyping of falls, fraud, and weather.  Not just the weather scares -- how about scams and fraud?  Last month, Investor Protection Trust released a survey of attorneys, most of whom have encountered some type of elder fraud in their practices. The organization asserts that more than 7.3 million Americans over 65 had already been victims of fraud. In June, In June, AARP's Fraud alert expert blogger, Sid Kirchheimer, noted that a robocall scam has geared up to offer money saving coupons and a free Medical Alert device, courtesy of AARP -- if you just provide address and credit card. In March, AARP published Caught in the Scammer's Net, a great title that was actually not limited to the AARP demographic, surveying only 77 people (women and men) that were aged 75+. What was useful in that survey, however, was the correlation between feeling isolated and lonely as one of the risk factors for participating in online scams.  My guess -- though I found nothing to prove it -- that is a risk factor for telephone, door-to-door and scams of all types. Read more.

Protect seniors from anonymous companies, products, and services.  On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog. Although the cartoonist did not intend it, that 1993 New Yorker cartoon predicted the future and so it came to pass – and then some. So much of what’s on the web masks an entirely different reality. And so little when you search online has anything to do with what you want to find. Most people do not scroll down to the second page of search results if irrelevance rules: the Internet is filled with an ocean of junk web pages and misleading ads, masquerading as legitimate commerce. Talk to our friendly representative (photo of woman wearing headset). Call NOW! As seen on TV! As mentioned in TIME Magazine! Misleading information or scare tactic pictures on websites targeting seniors -- to me, these rank with phony telephone credit card and financial services scams. Read more.

Had your identity stolen lately?  Oh well, you probably did. A few months ago, California’s Anthem Blue Cross admitted that someone had stolen 80 million health records, complete with name, address, SS # and more. A certain amount of self-congratulation can be found in its letter to the 80+ million: "The information accessed may have included names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, health care ID numbers, home addresses, email addresses, employment information, including income data. We have no reason to believe credit card or banking information was compromised." What a relief. But with the ‘minimal’ data stolen, the thieves got busy and filed for tax refunds from the IRS, which helpfully encourages direct deposit of the refund. TurboTax halted its electronic filing process recently due to likely fraudulent filing. And the IRS, which admits to weak fraud detection tools, will issue refunds as a result of this travesty. Read more.

 

category tags: 

fraud protection, baby boomers, Seniors, computers, internet and social networking

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from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/phishing-smishing-scam-all-seasons

Recapping the most-read blog posts from 2018

Fewer platforms, but new and more interesting offerings.  Two major changes happened in 2018 that are having and will continue to positively impact older adults. First the significant uptake of voice-enabled technology was forecast to be transformative, and so it was, in senior living, in the homes and families of seniors, and as an interface in newer cars to make giving and hearing directions easier.  Not so newsworthy, but perhaps more important, the hearing technology industry and audiologist specialty were disrupted in favor of self-service and offerings at a significantly lower cost.

Fewer senior-specific hardware items. Second, the proliferation of gadget introductions targeting seniors appears to have slowed down, and the use of standard platforms (smartphones, tablets, computers, smart speakers and smart watches) ramped up. This is good – too many companies arrived and departed over the past decade because their senior-unique offerings never ramped up to low enough cost or profitable volumes. And investors have regularly run screaming from the ‘older adult’ category, preferring to view the whole bucket as ‘health’. Whatever. Here are the most-read blog posts from 2018 – take another look if you missed them.

What technology matters for older adults? (Feb, 2018). Technology utilization among older adults grew.  According to Pew Research, smartphone adoption in particular grew among older adults.  Interestingly in a later survey, those with Amazon Echo or Google Home devices and apps used their smartphones less.  Self-driving technology was a big topic in 2017, much of the hype including mention of benefits for older adults.  Still not clear why an Uber driving itself is better than a Lyft or Uber with a driver – unless it is the well-publicized incidents about Uber drivers. Read more.

2018 Market Overview of Technology for Aging in Place was published (March, 2018). Technology and tech-enabled services matter for older adults. The marketplace for technology to assist aging adults in the Longevity Economy is expected to grow to more than $30 billion in the next few years, according to the updated report by Aging in Place Technology Watch -- more likely to be based on customization of standard software, using existing platforms than creation of senior-specific products. The report provides predictions about key technology trends for 2018 and beyond. Families, caregivers, and seniors will acquire new tech-enabled services that improve the quality of their lives. The 100-million-strong 50+ market is increasingly aware of technology alternatives and providers know it. Read more.

Caregiving technology came into focus (July, 2018).  What newcomers have entered the market?  Besides ‘longevity market new media’ like Stria (former Next Avenue) that provided a splash of cold water for startups and investors in the older adult space.  Although there is little evidence that any investors are bullish about the general older adult market – despite AARP documentation and various books to the contrary, innovators continue to create new offerings to help older adults live better lives.  Here are five recent and soon-launching offerings to help – content is from the websites of the firms or articles about them.   Read more.

Ten technologies from the 2018 Silicon Valley Boomer Venture Summit (June, 2018). Two sets of pitches, ten finalists across the competitions. The first five are finalists in the 2018 Silicon Valley Boomer Venture Summit Business Plan competition. The Business Plan Competition features companies pitching their ideas to a diverse panel of judges for feedback, funding and a $10,000 prize.  The second five are finalists in the AARP Innovation Labs Pitch Competition for companies focused on providing peace of mind to family caregivers through the use of VR, AI and other disruptive technologies. The winning team will go on to the AARP Innovation Pitch Event in Washington, DC, in October of 2018. Read more.

Now Hear This: Hearing-related technology for older adults and caregivers (June, 2018).  Uncorrected hearing loss isolates and harms older adults.  One in three between age 65 and 74 has hearing loss, and nearly half of people aged 75+ have some significant level of hearing loss.  Note that hearing loss has been linked to dementia and to social isolation – and that in turn has been connected to poorer health outcomes.  Furthermore, wearing hearing aids has been linked to fewer hospital visits. According to studies, among adults aged 70 and older with hearing loss who could benefit from hearing aids, fewer than one in five (20 percent) has ever used them. Why such a small percentage? Experts believe that it is a combination of denial, belief that hearing loss is not severe enough, perceived stigma associated with wearing hearing aids, and a perception that they cost too much. Read more.

Best Buy Acquires Great Call – What’s it Mean for Best Buy (July, 2018)?  First take – this links together multiple Best Buy initiatives, starting in 2011.   Look at the history of Best Buy. First a dabble with the now departed Wellcore in 2011 – clearly the time was not right – the oldest baby boomer turned 72 in 2018, but at 65 in 2010, consumers could not comprehend the utility of a wearable fall detector. But Best Buy executives saw the opportunity and decided to learn more.  More significant in 2011, Best Buy became a founding consortium member in a ‘living lab’ Charter House in Rochester, Minnesota (along with Mayo Clinic). "We believe technology has the potential to foster healthy, productive lives by enabling easier access to information and medical care," says Kurt Hulander, then senior director of health platforms at Best Buy.  Read more.

The Apple Watch and Fall Detection – What’s it Mean (Sept, 2018)? When Apple speaks, a puzzled market listens. When Apple announces, industries crane their necks to hear. Last week they announced two features of a new watch, ECG monitoring and fall detection. In July, Tim Cook apparently did not want to get into the world of FDA regulation. Well, that was then – or he just wasn’t saying. In this new watch, both the ECG feature and fall detection have received FDA clearance within 30 days of applying, startling some observers who noted that closer to 150 days was more typical for a medical device.  Healthcare observers are concerned that false positives from ECG readings could propel people unnecessarily to already-overloaded Emergency Rooms. To date, the Apple Watch may have been of greatest interest to 40 year old males. Interestingly, 70% of cases of atrial fibrillation are among the 65+ population.  Does Apple really want the 65+ population to buy an Apple watch? Read more.

[NOTE TO READERS:  If you receive this blog in an email, please click here to see the full post on Aging in Place Technology Watch website. Thanks.]

category tags: 

hearing loss, Voice First/AI technology, wearables, smart watch, Boomer-Senior Tech Business

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from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/recapping-most-read-blog-posts-2018

Six offerings from The Washington Innovation in Longevity Summit

Networking is critical to entrepreneurs.  And most critical? Network with non-entrepreneurs -- those who can understand the offering and see a practical context into which it fits. The 2018 Washington Innovation in Longevity Summit, led by Mary Furlong, provided that opportunity. Entrepreneurs presented, exhibited, and networked with senior leaders from AARP, NCOA, as well as executives from government agencies and leading age-focused firms. Here are six of the companies that presented and/or exhibited at this event.  All information is taken from the websites of the companies and the list is in alphabetical order:

• Because Market Incontinence Products. "Incontinence affects 25 million people in the US, and half of women over 50. You know someone who deals with it- someone who can’t always make it to the bathroom in time or get through the day without a leak. But chances are they’ve never talked about it with you or anyone, which usually means nobody is helping. That needs to change." Learn more at  Because.

• Blue Star Senior Tech. "Solutions for seniors to stay at home. We make life better for seniors by providing them with what they want: freedom, independence, dignity, and choice. Our name, BlueStar SeniorTech, reflects our passion, focus and commitment to improving the lives of seniors, veterans and their families. It encompasses our promise to deliver only the very best and to continue doing our duty – proudly serving with honor!"  Learn more at Blue Star Senior Tech.

• Lacuna Health.  "A new voice in care management. Lacuna Health offers a proven care engagement service for patient-centered care. Our 24-hour RN-led human and data intelligence capabilities identify gaps and enable coordinated and personalized care across the continuum." Learn more at Lacuna Health.

• Miigen. "Our older adults have a wealth of knowledge and stories stored in shoeboxes in attics across the world. Miigen captures this information for you and your family as a digital time capsule. The shoeboxes are the story of a life, a family and a community. Let us not leave it until a family member passes away to learn about their life.  Upload their memories in to Miigen and keep them alive forever."  Learn more at Miigen.

• MyFamilyChannel.  "The Family Channel is a special TV channel that allows family to send messages and photos directly to their loved one’s TV from any smartphone or computer.  Residents are also able to view the activity calendar, dining menus, and other information from staff on their TV.  The system was designed in collaboration with geriatric specialists to be simple and senior friendly." Learn more at MyFamilyChannel.

• StoriiCare. "The mission of StoriiCare is to improve quality of life for those in care. After more than a year of planning, work began on StoriiCare in early 2016. Initially focusing on social inclusion and reminiscence, it soon became apparent that there was a need for a solution that would also support a wider range of care operations." Learn more at StoriiCare.

[NOTE TO READERS:  If you receive this blog in an email, please click here to see the full post on Aging in Place Technology Watch website. Thanks.]

category tags: 

aging in place, senior living, Boomer-Senior Tech Business

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from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/six-offerings-washington-innovation-longevity-summit

How the media loves to talk about loneliness among older adults

Shall we take this WSJ article at face value? Rant on. From yesterday’s Wall Street Journal – pops up a dramatic headline, The Loneliest Generation, describing how baby boomer Americans, more than ever, are aging alone. Did you know that ‘social isolation’ has become a named baby boomer health condition, spiking Medicare costs by an additional $134 per enrollee – tucked into the list that includes arthritis (+$117 of cost) and diabetes (+$270), source AARP?  Most of that additional spend was on nursing facilities and additional hospitalization.  Hmm.  What’s wrong?

Mulling the numbers. Okay, let’s remind ourselves that baby boomers make up the population ranging in birth year from 1946-1964.  Only those born in 1953 or earlier are Medicare-eligible (that is, roughly 49 million people aged 65+).  So aside from the fact that social isolation is, as of 2016, a billable diagnosis (who knew?), please note that the ineligible younger boomers are generally not costing Medicare any money. And one more snarky point: this ‘new’ observation about loneliness among older adults is unchanged from 2008 or any of the previous cited research.

Moving on to the twisted topic at hand. From this WSJ article “Americans More than Ever are Aging Alone,” what’s it say? 8.3% of baby boomers (born 1946-1964) reported often feeling lonely, per the 2014 census data, in comparison to 7.2% of the silent generation, born before 1946. Those boomers -- seems like a bigger number, right? Hold on, statistics alert!  Surviving baby boomers add up to around 65 million as of that census. There are only 30 million that make up the ‘silent’ and ‘greatest’ generation that were even alive to be counted. Granted that loneliness and social isolation are health hazards akin to smoking 15 cigarettes per day (AARP again). But approximately 33% of baby boomers are obese, only 8.3% identified as lonely. The WSJ article then hammered the point, finding people who are estranged from their relatives and with one to talk to, are left on the floor in a doorway, unable to yell loud enough to be heard, or they are home alone decorating for the holidays, which brings us to…

…Technology to help the lonely feel connected and safe. As the numbers make somewhat clear, generationally, nothing has really changed. Part of the problem with articles like these is that they become inferential instruments for mission-motivated vendors to use in a pitch. “We have a [choose one: fall detector, radar sensor, smart wearable, medical alert, home sensor, smart speaker, virtual assistant] that will solve the aging loneliness epidemic as detailed in the Wall Street Journal. (We don’t have much tech to mitigate the more significant boomer problem of obesity, though, so we won’t bring that up.) 

PERS or Dorot’s University without Walls? A modicum of technology can go a long way to improve safety and social connection. One person in the article holds up what appears to be a MobileHelp medical alert wrist button, and notes that he now sleeps with his cellphone – a good start, though if he has that much wherewithal, more tech could be helpful. Ironically, social networking technology has more recently been shown to make people feel even lonelier, so loneliness among the elderly won’t be mitigated by more time spent on Facebook.  Perhaps for those in the WSJ article, someone by now has reached out to them, invited them to join a club, go to a meeting, showed them how they can participate in a phone-based discussion forum. Rant off.

category tags: 

social isolation, social media, PERS

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from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/how-media-loves-talk-about-loneliness-among-older-adults

Why talk to devices? Because it is both possible and compelling

Who can and will be talking to their technology?  Quite a few people will, though it is hard to get a real number – which is ironic, since Amazon, Google, Apple, Samsung, etc. all know how many they have shipped. And they also know how many devices are back-ordered.  Maybe believe this one: could there be 50 million smart speakers in US (possibly with some homes having more than one)?  On the other hand, according to Pew Research, only 66% of the 65+ (46 million) are broadband (that is, high enough speed) users to enable a smart speaker in the home. Perhaps non-users are in rural areas. Or are part of regions, according to Microsoft, that are significantly overstated by the FCC as having broadband.

Which device/software will they ask and why? For many simple interactions, there is almost no difference in capability between Amazon and Google offerings. Some could query Google Assistant on smartphones or in their cars with Apple CarPlay (via Siri) or Android Auto. With these tools, drivers can have text messages read aloud in the car and dictate the response. According to testing, Google Assistant is smarter, so for some uses, out and about with cars and smartphones, that may be more optimal – especially with recent new features for maps. Back in the home, it is feasible to have an established, if often misunderstood, and possibly, even absurdly continuing dialogue with smart speakers. We can wander around requesting streaming radio stations, now possible with devices in multiple rooms all playing the same song if you’re crazy enough to want that.

There is no going back – the genie is out of the bottle. There are some concerns – though privacy invasions are not, according to experts, as worrisome as data theft from hotel or credit bureau sites. Older adults and those who serve them may worry (a bit) having an always-listening device in a senior’s home, ready instantly to misunderstand commands, and possibly screw up the response with actions or accidental purchases. Perhaps tapping the microphone off on a nearby smart speaker while watching TV (commercials) should become standard practice. Checking out a report on smart speaker usage categories, people apparently are NOT using them, ironically, to purchase goods. Whew, that's a relief.

Who is NOT going to enable a voice first interface?  That answer is simple. If it can be enabled (one way or the other), it will be, even in the health provider/insurer segment, where the experiments are numerous and sometimes silly. But we know that doctors hate interacting with EHRs and that voice assistants will migrate further into the health ecosystem, the experiment phase will come to an end, and voice interactions will support personalized information exchange – your HIPAA-compliant answer to ‘when is my next appointment, for what and with whom?’  If the slow-to-change senior living industry sees the opportunity to improve service and operations, what is NOT possible?

NOTE: Upcoming conferences – will you be there to meet in person?

Next week: Innovations in Longevity in DC

January 8-9, 2019: Digital Health at CES in Las Vegas

January 15-16, 2019: Alexa Conference in Chattanooga

category tags: 

Voice First/AI technology, Boomer-Senior Tech Business, Seniors

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from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/why-talk-devices-because-it-both-possible-and-compelling

Four Health and Aging Technology Blog Posts from November 2018

A short month saw plenty of food – and provided food for thought.  Many (54 million!) traveled during the US Thanksgiving holiday, according to AAA.  It was month to think further about concepts introduced in October about caregiving technology – why is it so unclear what it is, who makes it, what is the form factor for presenting it and how should people be using it?  (More on that in future posts.)  Meanwhile, some thoughts about living to 100 – despite the endless repetition about shrinking life expectancy in the US, those that live past age 65 may last another 30 years…or more.  Perhaps this is a major factor in why older adults defer making moves to senior living?  (Just a thought.) More from the month:

Living to 100 – will technology matter – and for whom? What is the likelihood of living to 100 for older adults? Greater than you think – can you imagine that that by 2050, the number will grow from 72,000 to 1 million in the United States – in Canada, centenarians are the fastest-growing age group.  Today there are 450,000 centenarians worldwide – with the longest disability-free life expectancy found in Okinawa, Japan. Is society ready to accommodate double the number of seniors who will be living to 100 and beyond?  What will the experience be like – today’s centenarians offer a clue to how they came to live as long – genetics, healthy lifestyle, marital status. What these individuals were not, however, is socially isolated, as many of today’s boomers may be.  Read more.

That Time of Year – Considering Technology Gifts for Older Adults. Warning -- this is not a blog post about what to give to seniors. There are plenty of click-bait websites topping the search list, like Holiday Tech Gift Ideas or the lengthy Amazon tech gift list or even a list described as The 7 Best Tech Gifts to Buy for Seniors -- really? Maybe these are the perfect gifts – or perhaps for some family members, the DailyCaring list is appropriate. Among all these lists, there might be some intriguing items that could be welcome, if not necessarily practical. Don’t forget a set of portable batteries – extremely useful for all these devices during power outages. Okay that is enough about the What – and For Whom. Read more.

Apple’s Walled Garden Bites the Wallet, but is free better?  Check out this startling sampling of Apple user complaints...Rant on. ZDNet published a list of Apple complaints posted on Reddit (which has an Apple forum of more than 800K members) – the list was eye-opening and filled with rage about (storage, connector, power) limitations. Oddly, in the center of the online article was an iPad ad. One commenter compared the Apple customer experience to buying a high-end Audi and discovering that the price did not include tires. Today Apple has 44.3% market share phone ownership – compared to Android’s 54.5% (led by Samsung and LG).   Users feel locked into Apple's ecosystem, but some commenting said it was easier to switch than people believe. Phone replacement cycles are lengthening, due to high prices for new phones coupled with apparent (or fixable) durability of existing devices. Read more.

Interested in innovation in the age-related market?  You are based in the west coast or needed to be there to do other business?  Then you may have attended Aging 2.0’s annual Optimize event this week in San Francisco to hear Dr. Joseph Coughlin of the MIT Age Lab describe his insights about the Longevity Economy. And you may have viewed the pitches for partners, spoken with investors, and learned about Aging 2.0 progress in meeting its 2017-identified Grand Challenges -- augmented in 2018 with two additional, Care Coordination and Engagement. In addition, OhmniLabs won the Global Startup Competition. With that as context, here are five startups that exhibited at Aging 2.0 this week – all material is drawn from the firms' own sites. Read more.

NOTE TO EMAIL RECIPIENTS OF THIS BLOG:

You are receiving this blog post from the website Aging in Place Technology Watch – which tracks the market of innovation that can serve an aging population and includes trend reports, press releases, related news articles and more.

category tags: 

cell phones, smartphones, Boomer-Senior Tech Business, baby boomers

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from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/four-health-and-aging-technology-blog-posts-november-2018

That time of year -- considering technology gifts for older adults

Warning -- this is not a blog post about what to give to seniors. There are plenty of click-bait websites topping the search list, like Holiday Tech Gift Ideas or the lengthy Amazon tech gift list or even a list described as The 7 Best Tech Gifts to Buy for Seniors -- really? Maybe these are the perfect gifts – or perhaps for some family members, the DailyCaring list is appropriate. Among all these lists, there might be some intriguing items that could be welcome, if not necessarily practical. Don’t forget a set of portable batteries – extremely useful for all these devices during power outages. Okay that is enough about the What – and For Whom.  

More important than the gift itself – how should, can, or will it be used? Many of us have technology that was once useful. But sadly it's now junk -- defined as a purchased tech item that is now too slow, too obsolete, too heavy, or too much trouble. Sometimes tech-enabled items become junk almost immediately for a variety of reasons that the giver did not consider or forgot about.  Look around your own environment and the tangled nest (pun intended) of cables, connectors, chargers, cords, some specifically for devices long gone. Now consider the prospective gifts and factors such as:

• Out of the box assembly – maybe, maybe not so much.  Ideally the product has an online video somewhere that family installers can view, maybe even with family. Consider the video for Amazon Echo setup. A video might streamline these 22 steps to set up Google Home.  While the Echo setup can be done from a browser on a device that has Wi-Fi, Google Home assumes a tablet or smartphone. Like every other device joining a Wi-Fi network for the first time, these will need the network password to access it. Worn out already? Move on to...

• Ease (or lack thereof) of installation. Does a product need broadband access and that noted access to Wi-Fi?  Oh, and does the home already have Wi-Fi (and a router)? Does it need an initial setup that involves downloading software from a central site (like Google Play or the iOS App Store) – this is unfortunately still the state of the art for phone and tablet apps -- and some users, according to Pew, may never do the update -- or they debate it for a while to see if anybody was unhappy afterward. Or consider and maybe delay installing that very useful but complex Ring Doorbell -- the 11 steps include finding the breaker, a place to mount it, software setup, tuning and much more.  Okay, done...for now.  But then there are those...

• Updates -- too frequent, too many.   Don’t forget updates for devices (like smartphones, PCs and Macs) – which usually bring along security patches.  Microsoft, for example, has a pleasant weekday nicknamed Patch Tuesday – we are supposed to check out and run the updates which no doubt close gaping holes that hackers love, and which in the prior week were not perceived as gaping.  One of the upsides of Voice First offerings like Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant – updates occur on the other side of the Internet wall, in the so-called Cloud, done in one place the user just accesses. And what about...

• Ongoing and much-needed support.  Perhaps this should have been mentioned first, not last.  After the holiday is over, who will help when devices appear inexplicably unusable?  Whether it is our ever-so-smart phones, our oddly-blue screens, our uncharged or mismatched connections, or other bafflement -- like accessing Internet radio stations or streaming music or video? Who gifted that product anyway and can we call them?  Or we anxiously look for a support alternative, whether it is dropping in at a tech store, calling the local or phone-based Geek team or trying Best Buy’s new offering, Assured Living.

category tags: 

cell phones, smartphones, IoT and home monitoring, Boomer-Senior Tech Business

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from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/time-year-considering-technology-gifts-older-adults

Living to 100 – will technology matter – and for whom?

What is the likelihood of living to 100 for older adults? Greater than you think – can you imagine that that by 2050, the number will grow from 72,000 to 1 million in the United States – in Canada, centenarians are the fastest-growing age group.  Today there are 450,000 centenarians worldwide – with the longest disability-free life expectancy found in Okinawa, Japan. Is society ready to accommodate double the number of seniors who will be living to 100 and beyond?  What will the experience be like – today’s centenarians offer a clue to how they came to live as long – genetics, healthy lifestyle, marital status. What these individuals were not, however, is socially isolated, as many of today’s boomers may be.

A conundrum – will less healthy baby boomers be among the centenarians?  Baby boomers may have a longer life expectancy at 65 than their parents – most likely due to availability of more sophisticated health care and medications. But for a disease free quality of life in their later years, they will they need to fix lifestyle and health issues that did not characterize their parents. For instance, boomers have shown themselves to be more likely to be obese, have poorer eating habits, have a greater prevalence of diabetes, and take more medications than the previous generation.  Ironically, almost all boomers want to lose weight, but when asked, ironically, they want to do so without exercise. And beyond age 80, most boomers will have some hearing loss.

Resource constrains may boost dependency on technology for seniors and caregivers.  But the benefits of technology may not just be related to disease management and lifestyle. As the population ages, will there be enough family member and professional caregivers to provide care? According to predictions, the ratio of available caregivers to potential care recipients is going to worsen. Better technology and more creative uses of it are likely opportunities to mitigate the growing caregiver gap.  These include making greater use of sensors in the home (the so-called Internet of Things) to detect issues with gait and falls. Population health data will help identify those at greatest risk of health issues and likely readmission to hospitals (see Figure 1 Table of Categories that may matter). 

Making assumptions about care helps understand centenarian future needs.  How should society leverage available and future technology capabilities?  With lengthening life expectancy, poorer health and fewer available people to provide care, we can better understand the context for technology use and centenarians. The growing cost of providing in-person care will be an impetus for delivering more care remotely, including digital health technologies for diagnosis and remote monitoring, the use of wearables like smart watches or other jewelry to sense a problem like a fall and alert others.  (See Figure 2 Centenarian Morning in the Life)

Centenarians of the future will benefit from technology (r)evolution.  Eight years ago there were no commercially available consumer tablets. Five years ago there were no smart speakers on the market – today’s older adults have the benefit of access to large bright screens, devices they can speak to naturally and expect a response and widely available in-home WiFi and growing Internet use among older adults.  However, while Internet access is growing globally, the oldest old may still be non-participants in the benefits accrued with being online.  And non-participation may be as much due to the future cost of connection as due to lack of awareness.

Figure 1: Table of technology categories that may matter

Category	Examples	Implication/Benefit/risk
AI/Voice	Voice interfaces everywhere; increased engagement tools like Alexa, Google Assistant	Cost of higher speed Internet connection; privacy concerns
Social, Learning	Social networks, Online Learning	Maintain connection to family; learning in advanced old age; isolation of the offline
Digital health	Wearables, remote patient monitoring	More effective chronic disease management; alerting care providers;
Dementia care	Engagement, cognitive, wander management wearables	Improved cognitive function, lower risk of injury to wanderers
Hearing	Self-testing websites, OTC hearing aids, amplifiers/hearables	Lower price and access, reduced stigma, enabling broader use; isolation, poorer health, dementia risk for non-users
Fall prevention /detection	Weight-bearing exercise coaching, fall detection and gait analysis wearables	Reduction of hospitalizations due to falls, prediction of injury from gait analysis; risk of resistance from health professionals
Care Coordination	Tools for tracking care resources, tasks, milestones, care status	Family caregiver organization of tasks improves care quality; barriers of non-integration with health data remain
Internet of Things /Smart systems	In-home security, Individual motion/movement, cameras	Configured homes provide greater safety for very old; non-participation due to cost and lack of awareness
Predictive analytics	Identifying at risk population, Predicting future individual incident	Health/insurer groups maintain contact with at risk groups; individual providers reach out to centenarians at risk

 

Figure 2: Centenarian morning-in-the-life scenario enabled by technology

At 101, Mrs. Johnson lives alone in an independent living community and walks without assistance.  Each day she wakes with an amplified voice-enabled alarm clock that tells her the time and offers a tip from its smart assistant on what to wear, given the weather. She views her activity schedule for the day – and sees that she is scheduled to attend lunch and a play with a grandson. She always wears her attractive smart watch which it measures her heart rate and would warn if she fell. Her path to the bathroom is lit by motion-sensing lighting and alerts a caregiver that she is up. She glances at the voice-enabled display showing messages, news and fun facts for the day – spoken aloud and displayed. Her vital signs from the watch are regularly transmitted to a nurse -- Mrs. Johnson can expect a call from a nurse if vitals are out of range. Her daily stats are transmitted and aggregated because she is part of a study tracking wellbeing of Centenarians.  Mrs. Johnson speaks a request for a ride pickup for later that day. She receives a call from her grandson, then walks to the dining room to meet friends for breakfast.

category tags: 

baby boomers, Seniors, aging in place

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from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/living-100-will-technology-matter-and-whom

Apple’s walled garden bites the wallet – but is the world of ‘free’ better?

Check out this startling sampling of Apple user complaints... ZDNet published a list of Apple complaints posted on Reddit (which has an Apple forum of more than 800K members) – the list was eye-opening and filled with rage about (storage, connector, power) limitations. (Oddly, in the center of the online article was an iPad ad). One commenter compared the Apple customer experience to buying a high-end Audi and discovering that the price did not include tires.  Today Apple has 44.3% market share phone ownership – compared to Android’s 54.5% (led by Samsung and LG).  Phone replacement cycles are lengthening, mostly due to high prices for new phones coupled with apparent (or fixable) durability of existing devices.

…Meantime, over in the world of ‘Free’ content, volume (even if its fake) matters most.  The Wall Street Journal notes that free content has produced the low quality mishmash of  (useless, maybe harmful) content that users must wade through to find value – noting $20 billion annual cost of spam, for example, or the deletion of fake account underway at Facebook (583 million of 2.2 billion). Twitter deleted 20 million accounts just a few months ago (out of 383 million).  According to the WSJ, Facebook gets more than 98% of its revenue from advertising, for Twitter and Google, it’s 86%. For advertising-dependent models, the number of ‘users’ seeing ads matters, even when that number is glutted with bots, fake accounts, and hidden ads, not to mention moronic posts. Consider the tiny percent of revenue that is ad-based for Microsoft or Amazon. And then there's Apple, which nickels and dimes the customer over cords and keyboards.

Mull over these two worlds – and the Netflix subscription model starts to appeal.  Netflix, which charges users monthly for a subscription, appears (gasp) to be making money offering content people want enough to pay for it.  And Apple trumpets the 'privacy' it offers by not selling the data of you. But use Apple’s Safari browser from an iPhone or tablet, and go to websites that are, uh, ad-rich, like USA Today – whoa, look at all those ads. Tormented by an advertising-based ‘Free’ model, you install AdBlock Plus, a browser extension that blocks ads, sort of.  Check out the tiny type wording at the bottom of that screen, though. "We are able to keep our open source product free by charging large entities a fee for white-listing their services." Like Google.

What is the problem -- and can it be fixed or mitigated by charging a fee for access? Is the problem for consumers just that the ads are shown? Or that the entire online ad industry is built to leverage sophisticated technology to aggregate user attention and sell advertising?  The problem for businesses is that they must participate in this circus, leading to your viewing habits being evaluated and sold to marketers in order to show the ads. Yet the recipient of content about your usage is not known to you -- the user. And if 'you' are really a bot to be discovered and crushed, or 'your' access is from a fake account, what is the revenue model for a Twitter or Facebook, really? As noted in the Wall Street Journal, one day we will internalize the meaning of the fact that ‘Free’ really isn’t and that[ we will want to pay to be freed from the mess that is 'Free'. 

category tags: 

computers, internet and social networking, cell phones, smartphones

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from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/apple-s-walled-garden-bites-wallet-world-free-better

Five technologies from 2018 Aging 2.0 Optimize

Interested in innovation in the age-related market?  You are based in the west coast or need to be there to do other business?  Then you are likely going to attend Aging 2.0’s annual Optimize event this week in San Francisco, where you’ll get to hear Dr. Joseph Coughlin of the MIT Age Lab describe his insights about the Longevity Economy. And you will also have an opportunity to view the pitches for partners, speak with investors, and learn about Aging 2.0 progress in meeting its 2017-identified Grand Challenges.  With that as context, here are five startups exhibiting at Aging 2.0 this week – all material is drawn from the firms' own sites:

• Confetti. "We decided to create a platform that makes it easy to bring people together around life’s most important moments -- from birthdays, to weddings, to anniversaries or retirements -- to honor our past, celebrate the present, and get excited for what lies ahead. The team behind Confetti is part of AARP Innovation Labs, where we come up with new ideas to improve different parts of life. Our products are geared toward people of all ages, and Confetti is one of our first.”  Learn more at GiveConfetti.com.

• Leeo. "Leeo Smart Alert™ works with the smoke, carbon monoxide and continuous tone water alarms that you already have . . . to form a fire and flood prevention dream team. If a smoke, CO or water alarm goes off, Leeo calls you instantly on your phone and tells you what’s happening. If you’re not reachable, Leeo can notify your emergency contact list directly. You or anyone on your list can respond by checking your home or calling 911." Learn more at Leeo.com.

• OneDay. "For senior living communities:  get a branded app, choose the story to create, record your residents answering previously loaded questions. The app then creates a branded movie with music instantly. The movies are automatically uploaded to the department’s own web pages. OneDay is an enabler for senior living communities to engage residents and families in an innovative way, improve resident and employee engagement, and gain a marketing differentiator on resident tours." Learn more at OneDay.

• Somatix. "Precision recognition of physiological and emotional symptoms via simple hand gestures. The Somatix real-time gesture detection platform utilizes sensors built into a range of wearables, predictive analytics and machine learning to passively monitor, remotely track, analyze, and deliver insights and help act on massive volumes of detected gesture data. The platform ultimately facilitates personalized CBT (Cognitive Behavior Therapy) driven health intervention that increases individuals' treatment adherence and helps improve people's lives." Learn more at Somatix.com.

• Seismic. "A fusion of apparel and robotics -- Lightweight, breathable and comfortable; our apparel enables wearers to overcome limitations and achieve their full physical potential. We start by keeping it simple, like getting dressed in the morning, but with a powerful processor and an integrated sensor matrix, our Powered Clothing™ is programmable, tailored to your body and lifestyle. Learn more at myseismic.com.

category tags: 

Boomer-Senior Tech Business

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from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/five-technologies-2018-aging-20-optimize

Six Health and Aging Technology Blog Posts from October 2018

October – autumn leaves drift down and large events gear up.  Traversing the trade show world, so much tech, so little time. And other shows await, including Aging 2.0 Optimize in California, GSA in Boston, Innovations in Longevity in DC (see you at there!) all ahead in the remains of the year of 2018.  For each of the trade show events, look for startup garages and innovation sections grouped at the back or on the side of convention centers. Study the exhibit halls online if you can’t be there in person.  Show organizers want you to find new companies – and some may be the most innovative ones you encounter in the entire event.  Here are six blog posts from October 2018:

What is Caregiving Technology, Anyway? A term that means what you want it to mean. It's crazy. Search for the term 'caregiving technology.' At the top of the retrieved page – an ad for ClearCare to help you 'improve client and employee management' – sounds like paid (agency) home care. Over at AARP, there is a long list of resources (non-tech) on the AARP caregiving site for family caregivers, who may use paid care. There’s the 2017 AARP reportthat surveys caregivers about what they want from technology -- they are interested in but not currently using.  There’s the Family Caregiver Alliance report that lists technologies from firms, but was last updated in 2013 (perhaps the date of this FCA list).   The National Alliance for Caregiving (NAC/AARP) report is dated 2014 – and focuses on a vision for what caregiving technology should be. Read more here.

TenTips for Launching a Product or Service – October 2018. It’s 2018 and in full sprint to the year-end finish. Soon you will launch a boomer/senior, home health tech product or service, or maybe a caregiver advisory service.  As your company gets ready to travel into battle or a booth this fall with the sound of lively pitches all around, it is time to for you to revisit this guidance. Perhaps sometime soon, your new or existing company will officially launch a new product or service, or perhaps a long-awaited, over-described and much-anticipated offering will finally ship. First read existing content and research reports on your particular market segment.  Look over this updated checklist that continues to hold true – with updated links and references. If necessary, refine tactics. Read more here.

Five Offerings from the Boston Connected Health Conference 2018.  Held each year – but has much changed? The Connected Health Conference is still a Health IT conference, owned by HIMSS, spruced up by the pre-conference Voice Health summit, task forces, and even onstage singing by health tech folk that may wish they were in show business. There were more sessions acknowledging caregiving and even acknowledging aging adults -- as well as gnashing of teeth about non-adoption of technology in healthcare. But many attendees (also exhibitors) seem still to be circling the health care universe from the vantage point of the IT buyer -- health IT consulting, tech vendors seeking health IT customers. And vendors trying to nurture innovation, tackling one not-so-integrated healthcare and engagement process at a time.  New offerings appearing at this event include (material is from the company sites). Read more here.

Help Yelp Serve Families with Information about Nursing Homes. Consider CMS Five Star Rating system and how it ‘serves’ families.  Rant on.  No doubt you know someone who was baffled at how a terrible nursing home gets a 4 or 5 star rating from CMS’s Five Star Rating System, while a good one can appear to have a lower rating, applied from an inspection before management overhaul several years earlier.  Why, you ask? Indeed.  Others have asked as well – noting the obvious missing link, family satisfaction with the nursing home, including dealing with the staff. For starters. Retiring outdated information, next.  Read more here.

Voice First and Health – What’s Notable and Not So Much? You probably knew this – that 2018 was the year of voice tech and healthcare.  Summits were held, experts have declared, pilotswere piloted, partnerships formed, enthusiasm reigned, and so it has gone. As for 2019, according to Sara Holoubek, CEO of Luminary Labs, "expect a proliferation of bad voice experiences."  C​onsider the healthcare experiences we have endured – it’s a good time to consider a new way to interact with the health system. From a technology perspective, what is each players doing to help us use our voice to have a better health and patient engagement experience?   Are any of these initiatives tuned to the needs of older adults? Read more here.

Five New Technologies from Leading Age Philadelphia 2018. From AAHSA to LeadingAge.  In 2010, this association was renamed LeadingAge – from the Association of Homes and Services for the Aging – a mouthful, shortened to AAHSA. As it was at first encounter in 2009, it is an association of faith-based and non-profit senior living and aging-related services. A rhetorical question, does LeadingAge, the association and event organizer, lead in the world of aging services?  Or is it dragged into the future, one which older adults do not necessarily want – and also cannot afford?  From the 2016 event, attended by 6500, attendance had shrunk from 2009’s attending 9000. Meanwhile, the ‘aging in place’ concept is a reality for most older people. A small percent live in nursing homes. Most don’t move to senior living communities, which have been overbuilt in recent years -- and today are only 86% occupied. Read more here.

 

category tags: 

mHealth-Digital Health-Telehealth-Voice Health, Voice First/AI technology, Family caregivers

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from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/six-health-and-aging-technology-blog-posts-october-2018