For older adults, consider that transitions are going to take longer

The baby boomer generation’s later years will be unprecedented.  Each time the population aged 65+ is counted, it’s a bigger number. That onslaught, now at 52 million, bears repeating.  The boomers, turning 65 at a rate of 10,000 a day, are pushing and prodding assumptions, deadlines, and pundit predictions. As they do so, they will force industries to change offerings – and drive considerable change in technology that underpins their lives. Consider signals from today's older adults that will only become more pronounced as the boomers move past today's upper age of 73. Innovators should nderstand and and match their offerings to clear trends indicating that:

• Older adults will live and work longer.  With life expectancy for those aged 65+ now in the mid-to-late 80’s for women, mid-80’s for men, living to 90 and beyond is no longer unusual. And working longer is a result.  At age 65, 20% are still in the workforce – and they are twice as likely to be working as those who were at the same age in 1985.  Today, however, those working longer are typically college-educated and have jobs that are not physically demanding.

• Older adults will stay longer in their own home. Only 10% of the senior population moves to senior living, and to preserve their savings, those who move do so at a later date.  The remainder will remain longer in their own homes -- ‘aging in place’ and utilizing services like home care and home health care.  Many will also utilize the services of Continuing Care at Home (CCaH), lower-priced offerings from senior living companies like Friends Life Care in Pennsylvania or Kendal At Home (available across 30 states).  Or those living alone may opt to share their homes by obtaining roommates through organizations like Silvernest or Roomates4Boomers.

• Older adults will to interact differently with health providers.  Studies are showing that older adults who have Internet and broadband may be willing to use telehealth.  Better-educated and in higher income demographic, they may be working longer. They also may be interested and willing to consider self-care approaches, as well as being more willing to use patient portals. Those who do may also find that their health status is better than those who don't. Perhaps that's because they are more interested in and aware of their own test results and upcoming appointments.  These boomers are also signalling that they are more interested in self-care, whether that involves testing their own hearing or vision, buying devices or eyeglasses online, or finding ways to take care of themselves before someone else has to help them.

category tags: 

baby boomers, senior living, mHealth-Digital Health-Telehealth-Voice Health

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from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/older-adults-consider-transitions-are-going-take-longer

Wearables for health and wellbeing

How do wearables contribute to health and wellbeing of older adults? Did something happen recently propelling sales up 51% that pushed consumers out the door to buy a wearable, like a fitness band or a smartwatch? Was it the coolness of the Apple Watch? Was it fear of ailments that worsen with lack of exercise? Or to put the question another way, what is it that these devices do that can help maintain or improve health, noting that 32% of baby boomers today get no exercise whatsoever, according to the CDC. However more than 50% are striving for 30 minutes per day and want feedback about how they're doing. Today’s wearables have functions that are relevant because they:

Measure your heart rate.  Tracking heart rate is one of the most basic functions of wrist-worn wearables – and a basic element of tracking includes knowing the target (and maximum) heart rate ranges for your particular age group. The objective is to exercise to the point where your heart is beating at up to 85% of its capacity, which in the example chart would be 78-132 beats per minute for a 65-year-old with a max of 155 bpm. As note in the link, medications can impact heart rate, and for those starting out, lower end of the range is better.

Track your exercise.  Are you walking, running, swimming or doing an exercise that devices can detect as motion -- and even count, as with steps?  Whether you are doing the exercise to lose weight or become and stay fit, the combination of motion and measured heart rate can be compared against goals and even recommended fitness levels.  The goals can be entered into a smartphone app, for example, on Apple Health or Samsung Health, and the Bluetooth-synchronized device coaching feature will buzz and/or display encouragement as you move and as goals are achieved.

Help you get help if you fall.  Fall detection has been a feature of wearable Personal Emergency Response Pendants (or Medical Alerts) for the past decade. However, it is a relatively new feature of wrist-worn wearables like watches, but from a safety standpoint, may turn out to be one of the most useful in retirement, especially for people who live alone and/or take a dog for a walk alone.  These devices have a built-in accelerometer and gyroscope which may be activated in a fall.  Depending on whether the feature is available and also turned on, the device may place a call to emergency services.

Electrocardiogram (ECG). Checking for heart arrhythmia is an even newer feature of wearables, and is included in the Apple Watch Series 4 and likely in a future Samsung Galaxy Watch Active.  For individuals who are worried about abnormal heart rhythms, or AFib, which mostly affects those age 65+, the device could be useful. Examples where it was helpful have already been noted.  

Help you find where you’re going – and also be found.  We have grown increasingly dependent on GPS Location-tracking as part of mapping and directions, trusting it sometimes over common sense.  And GPS location can be enabled in newer wearables, like Samsung’s or Apple’s. They can also help with directions and your location even when away from a smartphone or the phone is turned off. But a GPS-enabled device can also be a lifesaver.  When enabled and integrated with a service, for example, it enables responders to find your location and display that on a map. And if you lose the watch, its GPS location capability can enable the watch to be found with a Find my Phone feature.

category tags: 

wearables, smart watch, mHealth-Digital Health-Telehealth-Voice Health

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from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/wearables-health-and-wellbeing

Eight Intriguing Offerings from the 2019 Voice Summit

The Voice Summit, like Voice First itself, is still in its early years.  The second annual event was last week – and you would think incorrectly that at least one writer from a national news media outlet would written about it by now, especially with 5000 attendees, sponsorships from Amazon and Google, 150 exhibitors, and numerous awards.  In fact one of those which went to UnaliWear for Best IoT Device, a firm we have long tracked in the aging tech market segment, but given the rise of smart watches, the potential transcends that segment. Another (healthcare) went to Suki, a voice notes offering for doctors that "has demonstrated up to 70% reduction in time spent entering notes." 

Next year’s event will no doubt add links to the winners’ websites, and perhaps could appear to beless random, perhaps with (or only with) case studies demonstrated by deploying organizations. Even better, the vendors will also have more descriptive websites. Here are six (in addition to UnaliWear and Suki) that caught my eye:

Behavioral Signals.  "Behavioral Signals: Behavioral Signals develops technology to analyze human behavior from voice-data. Using their flagship product, Oliver API, for emotions and behavior recognition, enterprises can track emotions and behaviors in conversations and get a complete view of related key performance indicators. Their award-winning emotion recognition and behavioral prediction analytics technology utilize cognitive modeling and advanced machine learning algorithms to provide enriched conversational insights for interaction with voice assistants, chatbots, robotic virtual assistants, social healthcare robotics and mobile voice assistants." Learn more at Behavioral Signals.

Bond.Ai.  "BOND.AI, links financial institutions with what he refers to as their "empathy engine" - conversational AI technology through either voice or text that helps create a human-centric approach to banking. The tool is supposed to help banks and lenders better market appropriate services to potential customers and nudging consumers to improve their financial health." Learn more at Bond.Ai.

Speak2Software.  "Speak2 provides a senior-care focused solution that leverages voice command, smart technology and cloud. By enabling seniors to make requests to their caregivers via voice and introducing the many features of voice/smart speaker technology, we enrich the well-being of the senior community.  We improve care, lower costs, and help prevent the leading cause of both fatal and nonfatal injuries for people aged 65+, falls (ncoa.org). We deliver a full-service solution to customers in the assisted living, nursing care and home care space that provide a vast array of benefits to their residents."  Learn more at Speak2Software.

SurveyLine. "Surveys by Voice is the only survey platform designed specifically for VOICE. Similar to Survey Monkey, SurveyLine allows any organization to quickly and easily create a survey, poll, or set of feedback questions, and then instantly have the survey be taken BY VOICE -- using Alexa, Google Assistant, or via any mobile app using the SurveyLine SDK for iOS and Android." Learn more at SurveysByVoice.

Witlingo Voice First for Healthcare. "Witlingo builds products and solutions that simplify how companies and organizations of all sizes to deliver Voice First experiences, such as Amazon Alexa skills and Google Assistant actions, quickly, easily and with minimal costs. At the conference, an Alexa skill enables patients to get answers from Alexa, in their doctors' voice, after going through a surgery." Learn a bit more at Witlingo.

WooHoo from SmartBeings. "SmartBeings, Inc., a Silicon Valley based IoT-focused company, has developed the world's first AI-embedded, interactive and affordable solution to orchestrating multiple smart devices. Featuring a 360 degree camera, and full video integration and intuitive, easy-to-use software, WooHoo enables users to manage all connected home devices from any location. WooHoo's natural language processing capability enables the device to understand the user, as if talking to another person. Through the product's AI interactive smart home hub with facial recognition and voice control, smart living is now both easy and affordable." Learn a bit more at SmartBeings.Ai or Silicon Valley Review.

category tags: 

Voice First/AI/Voice Assistants, mHealth-Digital Health-Telehealth-Voice Health

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from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/eight-intriguing-offerings-2019-voice-summit

Voice, Health, and Well-being – Launching a New Report for 2020

It’s a given -- Voice First will be even more pervasive in 2020. The rapid growth of the market for voice-enabled technologies has been a phenomenon within the past two years that can understand spoken requests and commands, answer questions, and even offer scheduled alerts.  Industry firms like Gartner expect that the combination of natural language processing, AI, and speech recognition are driving significant growth in adoption of voice technology across multiple dimensions. Speech recognition, for example, will penetrate 80% of mobile devices by 2020.   Some describe this trend of developing software for voice-enabled device user interfaces as Voice First.

Voice First in health -- examples proliferate – is this a fad, or is there staying power?  You can’t turn around without encountering another example. Startups (37) are building voice apps; consider that voice skills seem to be populating like weeds in healthcare, the big vendors want to be popping up at the bedside in patient care, and of course, all this deployment will change healthcare. But is that true? A research report project launches in September that will seek answers to these and other questions. The process will incorporate interviews with 20-30 experts/stakeholders. For those who are interested in assisting in shaping the direction on this topic through a few limited sponsorships, please send a note to laurie@ageinplacetech.com.

Why tackle the topic of voice, health, and well-being?  This research is a follow-on report to the 2018 Future of Voice First Technology and Older Adults. The research/report process seeks to understand the role that voice-activated technologies can play in monitoring and improving health, engaging multiple age groups, including boomer-senior adults living at home or in senior living. The scope and details of the topic are subject to shaping by report sponsors, but may also consider younger age groups and how they may benefit from Voice First support in disease management; or how individuals respond to health and well-being suggestions based on profiles, interactions and feedback. The report may attempt to answer, among other questions:

• What is the opportunity for voice assistants as envisioned by health care providers?
• What’s new in the use of voice-enabled technology for home healthcare, outpatient healthcare services and monitoring or encouraging well-being?
• What are the different types of voice-enabled services/scenarios for home health, home care, senior living, or outpatient care?
• What’s next and who (or what organizations) will be involved?

Your thoughts are welcome. In a rapidly changing technology segment like this, no one person or organization can see clearly what is happening or what may happen next.  Please feel free to comment directly to this post or send thoughts to laurie@ageinplacetech.com. The goal of this project is to complete interviews in Q4 and publish the report in early Q1 2020.  Thanks in advance for your help and thoughts.

category tags: 

Voice First/AI/Voice Assistants, mHealth-Digital Health-Telehealth-Voice Health, healthcare, home health care

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from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/voice-health-and-well-being-launching-new-report-2020

Design for all – what we wanted and what we got

Here’s a test. Can you look at a list, for example, of technologies that vendor websites claim are aimed at older adults and their caregivers -- and substitute younger beneficiaries or health care recipients?  Do designers who develop applications, devices, and websites that appear to target older adults do that exercise of substitution as they proceed from concept to pilot to delivered offering? Was that what was meant in the concept ‘design for all’ in this prescient report ‘Connected Living for Social Aging’ sponsored by AARP in 2011?  Per the report’s definition of ‘Design for all’: User experiences that appeal to all age groups, persisting across versions and devices.   

What does senior-specific mean? We can tell that app stores and search engines think they know what is meant by ‘senior-specific’. Note the proliferation of apps and websites targeting seniors, and wonder, has the ‘design for all’ concept lost meaning or relevance? Now that user interfaces (think cars, chairs or smartphone screens) can be adaptive/adjustable to the needs of owners from use of a different key in the car or tap on a screen, why create specialized software at all?

Consider further the definition itself. Should ‘design for all’ mean for all people, for all devices or both, as the report argued? Consider this phrase from the report: “design-for-all technologies will provide our own personalized network of devices that recognize where they are through our authorized and turned-on GPS location tracking; they automatically know streets have changed and offer the latest directions—no need to download new maps.”  Not easy in 2011, but standard operating procedure today, along with privacy concerns and transformation (not necessarily with our permission) of user preferences into data, along with product and service recommendations.

The advice to vendors from the 2011 report -- did we get what we wanted? Below are the points of advice to vendors derived from 30 interviewees for this document (who ranged from academic experts to CEOs to futurists. The guidance was pointed, but was the point achieved?

• Transform senior technology products to be health-specific.  A design-for-all world will gradually eliminate the need for niche vendors who market software, hardware, devices for a senior audience. Instead, vendors will create health condition-specific offerings for chronic disease management or assistive technologies that cross all age ranges.

 

Takeaway: Niche offerings for seniors remain because the ‘intuitive’ user interface isn’t really and no one wants to be made to feel stupid.

 

• Separate user interfaces from physical devices. Software version changes, new functionality and invasive viruses plague us. If the computer is infected, as prices drop we may be as likely to discard it as repair it, in the same way we send our now-obsolete cell phones into the recycle bin when we discover the smart phone carried by our peers and family members. In the future, we will pop on a new external ‘skin’ and pay to subscribe to new features as they appear in the cloud, our existing device adapting to new capabilities rather than starting over.

 

• Craft a total customer experience that blends online and offline worlds.  Just as customers today expect to be able to chat online if they have a problem, they delight in vendor experiences that are as great online as they are offline.

 

Takeaway: Online retail has made the transformation nearly complete, as more stores close, or buy online to pick up in the store replaces shopping.  Chatting with a bot, unfortunately, has replaced discussing a product with a person, and customer experience has deteriorated, replaced by (retailer) cost reduction.

• Create public-private partnerships to lower cost of connection.  With more widely available high-speed infrastructure, vendors will benefit from sliding scales of access pricing, facilitated by partnerships with governments and non-profits.  Why should they want older adults online, subsidizing to make it happen? They want to lower their costs of service, ensure that programs offered can be utilized, and keep an aging population connected to alternatives for better health, working, and social meaning. 

 

Takeaway: Much has been done, but according to Pew, 27% of the 65+ population is not online – theories range from cost, perceived value, and a correlation with lower income and education.  And technology deployment is more complicated as devices proliferate – which created more comprehensive training capabilities.

 

• Understand that design-for-all means experienced by all.  To reach a broader audience across income and age spectrums, vendors must expand programs that reuse no-longer-need devices, formalizing and advertising ways to enable iPads to be reconfigured for community and senior center use, laptops to replace desktops, and smartphones to replace cell phones. And Pew Research studies show that smart phone users, particularly older adults, download apps that they don’t use because they don’t know how.

 

Takeaway:  Re-use and redeployment has happened – as for apps, they are a-plenty, including scam apps.

• Engage with older adults to turn bystanders into buyers.  Too often market research can be self-fulfilling prophecy. The data shows us that certain age groups aren’t buying -- therefore we shouldn’t market to those age groups. Instead, vendors should assume the opposite – go out and find why products aren’t penetrating specific age brackets and learn about barriers or missing capabilities. Using input from all age groups will expand market reach – yielding benefits for all.

 

Takeaway:  Considering design, including tech, awareness of an aging population is growing as the boomer age wave moves through. But senior-friendly design and testing of general market consumer products (not just tech) is under the radar, if it is happening at all.

category tags: 

Aging technology, Boomer-Senior Tech Business, smartphones, cell phones

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from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/design-all-what-we-wanted-and-what-we-got

Six new technologies for older adults – July 2019

More smarts are moving into tech for older adults. AI capabilities combined with a Voice First interface is increasingly expected – and so they are part of new offerings to help older adults, bothliving at home or in senior living communities. Will older adults be comfortable with them?  Will they be used effectively to help them remain as safe, independent and/or well as possible? These remain to be validated, but between the smarter homes and the smart devices, we are heading into another wave of innovation.  Here are six technologies (alphabetical order) entering the space – information is drawn from firm websites:

Handsfree Health. "WellBe^® utilizes advanced speech recognition, natural language processing, and speech synthesis to deliver information and answers from any place in your home where it can hear your voice. HandsFree Health's WellBe, is a secure, HIPAA compliant in-home voice-activated device that speaks when spoken to. Among its many features, WellBe can be programmed to remind you or your loved ones to take medicine, to make or keep appointments, order refills, and to require verbal confirmation that it's been done."  Learn more at Handsfree Health.

SafelyYou. "Results-driven AI technology designed for memory care. SafelyYou-Guardian™ is our artificial intelligence hub that is installed at the facility. It applies AI algorithms to video received by cameras installed around the facility. When a fall is detected, SafelyYou-Guardian triggers a series of events in real-time that include text messages or phone calls to the on-call staff. All video which is not detected as containing a fall is immediately deleted from the system."  Learn more at Safely-You.

StaySmartCare. "We use discreet monitors to collect data on the daily activities of your loved one. No wearables required. We monitor health data, activity data, medication data, and cognitive data for a complete picture of how your loved one is doing around the clock – without interrupting their activities of daily living or intruding upon their privacy.  Our call center is alerted 24/7 with nurses on call that will take immediate action should something out of the ordinary (such as a fall) occur. We’ll call family and EMS at the first sign of possible trouble. The Stay Smart Care mobile app will also alert all caretakers linked to your account." Learn more at StaySmartCare.

Tochie. "Tochie enables caregivers to assist seniors with personalized voice reminders to help them stay on top of their medication or caregiver schedules, and daily tasks or appointments. Caregivers are able to assist with a senior’s daily calendar by remotely recording voice reminders and scheduling these reminders to play when needed. The remote scheduling, done through the Tochie mobile app, offers caregivers convenience when setting up and modifying reminders for their loved ones. An instant message feature allows caregivers to send an immediate voice message to the senior - a spontaneous message of encouragement, or an update on an unplanned change in schedule." Learn more at Tochtech Technologies.

Well.said. "Well.Said’s Better Every Day improves connection to the community, enhances daily life and supports independence.  It gives Loved Ones the peace of mind that their family member is doing well, increasing in independence and enjoying life.  Using Alexa, it bridges the digital divide for seniors, overcoming barriers associated with other technologies while enhancing their sense of connectedness and wellbeing. The MyDay skill is available on Alexa for adults living at home or in independent living settings.  For more information on Well.Said's solutions." Learn more at Wellsaid.ai.

Wytcote SeniorSense. "Powered by Wytecote’s Autobahn of IoT™, SeniorSense™ easily tracks your residents, your team, your vendors and visitors, as well as your physical plant conditions with unparalleled real-time visibility. Plus, SeniorSense™ easily integrates with your existing solutions, software, call systems and wearables into one place, with one dashboard. The unparalleled SeniorSense™ system keeps track of all of this and more, providing health alerts to care team and families, or responsible parties. Plus, it keeps detailed records to reduce your risks and increase your HIPAA compliance while giving residents and families greater peace of mind." Learn more at SeniorSense.

[NOTE: If you are reading this post in email, take a look at it on www.ageinplacetech.com to find other resources and articles.]

category tags: 

IoT and home monitoring, fall prevention, fall detection, dementia care, cognitive decline, smart home, Voice First/AI/Voice Assistants

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from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/six-new-technologies-older-adults-july-2019

Older adults and screen time – what’s it mean?

Pew’s latest opus examined screen time for older adults.  The highlight of this document published in June – from age 60 to 80 and beyond, older adults spend more time on their screens (watching TV or videos) than on anything else other than sleep. And that includes time spent working. And one other interesting tidbit – 40% of those in their 60s are still working, which of course includes the un-retired.  But 14% of people in their 70s are still working, according to Pew, along with 4% of people in their 80s.  The report also notes that 73% of the 65+ are Internet users, and 53% are smartphone users.  As with the younger population, reading and socializing time has ticked down.

What’s on that screen, anyway? For the 65+, only 26% in  another study during the same time period were identified as Netflix users.  The BLS offers more granular statistics – those 65 and older watch more TV than teenagers.  Broken down geographically, it can’t be because of the weather. Among Cable TV users, folks in Florida and Arizona, ironically, watch fewer than 3 hours per day, compared to 3 hours per day in Ohio, Indiana and Michigan.   The Pew document did not examine time spent online as screen time– but Facebook’s user base is growing among older adults, presumably balancing the sizable loss of young people as well as the 30 million who died during the company’s first eight years, now able to be memorialized through a new 'legacy' feature. But we digress.

What happened to exercise? Maybe during the time older adults are in front of screens, they have already exercised for the day. Unfortunately, no. Only 16.4% of adults age 65-74 and 10.2% of the 75+ age groups met federal exercise guidelines in 2018. In the fine print, these aren’t too onerous if a little is done each day. Yet reasons why not to exercise (excuses, etc.) equal the list of compelling positives. And just published, it turns out that exercising in the morning improves memory. Alas, the chair and ever-larger TV screen beckon, with new series, episodes, interactions, videos and updates, both inviting and available with a single tap.

Other factors correlate with the Pew data -- obesity and work.  Correlated with the rise in screen time for the 60+ population, it’s no surprise that 41% of individuals aged 60+ have been identified as obese according to the CDC.  Both CDC and the screen time data show that higher levels of education correlate with working past the age of 60 (Pew) and, not surprisingly, lower levels of obesity (CDC).  And in fact, 53% of those aged 65+ with a college degree are still in the workforce.  A caveat: the Pew survey period ends in 2017, the CDC data concluded in 2016. As the worker shortage worsened during 2018, nearly half of new jobs were filled by those aged 55+, and in 2019, more than 20% of those aged 65+ are working or looking for work.  At the least, these folks are busier -- maybe screen time for them has declined.

 

[NOTE: If you are reading this post in email, take a look at it on www.ageinplacetech.com to find other resources and articles.]

 

category tags: 

computers, internet and social networking, baby boomers, healthcare

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from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/older-adults-and-screen-time-what-s-it-mean