Older adults deserve more from media when it comes to scams

Who do you trust? Rant on. A long WSJ article details how trusting people can be and why robocall scams work.  A woman listened to a voice mail message saying that it was the FBI and that her identity had been stolen. (That was the first and only robo-dialed call).  When they spoke, the caller told her to turn over all savings, further telling her not to tell anyone about his step-by-step instructions as to where to move the money, nearly $340,000. Why did this 60-something oncology nurse listen to this caller over a several-day period?  Why did she agree to stay in a hotel for two days while the money was in motion?

The Journal article title misleads. “Robocall Scams Exist Because They Work”.  No, actually, WSJ headlines work even if the article is about something else.  That something else was a character sketch of a spectacularly naïve and vulnerable woman.  Why did she never tell any family member, including her husband, about it until the money was gone?  According to the article, it was because of a psychological phenomenon -- a ‘habitual reliance on people in authority.’ 

Something is worrisome about this – it’s the reporting.  Note that the median loss in a robocall scam is $700.   The amount of robocall fraud is dropping – but the number of reported imposter fraud calls is growing – 46,000 reported in May.  But even with that statistic, this particular case is a spectacular outlier, not an indicator of growth of either robocall or imposter scams. Consider the amount, the time and steps involved, the secrecy she agreed to, all at the behest of someone who said he was from the FBI. Shame on the Wall Street Journal for positioning this poor vulnerable, albeit highly educated person with terrible judgement as an example of why robocall scams work.   Rant off.

category tags: 

fraud protection

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from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/older-adults-deserve-more-media-when-it-comes-scams

Five new health and caregiving technologies November 2019

LeadingAge in San Diego and more.  Entrepreneurs clearly see the opportunity for providing tech-enabled services to help care for older adults.  Large events like Leading Age, Argentum, and sub-events within CES and HIMSS all point to the business potential that draws startups as well as new offerings from existing players – in what may become an increasingly crowded market. Here five recent announcements, two from the Startup Garage at Leading Age in San Diego -- adding three others from recent press releases.  All information is drawn from the websites of the companies themselves.

Curadite. Curadite empowers patients, clinicians, caregivers and family members to work together to improve medication adherence with the support of our intelligently linked, proactive medication management platform. With Curadite’s MMP, healthcare providers and loved ones have tangible evidence that medication is being taken as prescribed. With the addition of data analytics, visualization and alerts, our cloud-based dashboard and reporting system supports healthcare providers. Learn more at Curadite.

Echo care-tech.com. (LeadingAge) EchoCare, founded in 2015, has developed the Elderly Care Home Observer (ECHO) system, a unique sensing system for the care of the elderly during their stay at home.  ECHO uses a unique and safe radar which alerts an emergency operator or caregiver automatically after situations such as severe falls, heavy breathing due to distress, prolonged lack of movement, as well as keeping track of the user’s daily activity and recording any indications of a deterioration of health. Due to being non-wearable unlike many other systems on the market, senior citizens can benefit from ECHO without having to worry about remembering to switch on, charge and wear a smart device. Learn more at echocare-tech.com.

RemoteHomeCheck.  (LeadingAge) Watering the plants. Turning off all the lights at night. Locking the doors––these are just a few of the daily tasks an aging loved one faces. But are they struggling? How would you know? Everyone needs a little help now and then, and with Remote Home Check you can remotely check in on a loved one and provide assistance from home––whether you’re across the street, or across the world. Bring simplicity to your life. Learn more at RemoteHomeCheck.

Omcare (LeadingAge) Ōmcare is far more than a pill sorting system with self-reported validation. With three issued patents and more pending, Ōmcare’s in-home remote dispensing and integrated care monitoring will drive a new way to measure adherence and set a new standard for care coordination that is simple, safe and easy to use. Ōmcare links remote dispensing with video confirmation such that every dispensing event is directly observed and confirmed. Caregivers know immediately if a dose is missed or incorrectly administered.  Other smart pill dispensers and mobile compliance apps depend on self-reporting rather than direct observation. Ōmcare’s approach will change how the industry measures medication adherence. Learn more at Ōmcare.

Orbita Assist. OrbitaAssist is an award-winning, voice-enabled, AI-driven bedside virtual health assistant. This solution offers an alternative to traditional nurse call systems. Using a smart speaker configured with OrbitaAssist, the patient can say things like "tell the nurse I need a pillow," or "tell the nurse I've fallen."  Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning operate on the backend to triage, prioritize, and intelligently route requests to appropriate care team members who view requests on mobile, tablet, or desktop devices. Then, the patient hears a natural language response such as "someone will bring you a pillow soon," or "we've raised an alarm with the nurse." Learn more at OrbitaAssist.
 

category tags: 

healthcare, Boomer-Senior Tech Business, home health care

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from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/five-new-health-and-caregiving-technologies-november-2019

Technology Can Help Make Medication Management Smarter

Medication non-adherence – it’s serious. This medication non-adherence (not filling prescriptions or missing dosages) is a major health issue – resulting in 10% of hospitalizations, 125,000 deaths, and costing the healthcare system up to $300 billion/year.  Consider that 1 in 5 Medicare patients are re-admitted to the hospital within 30 days after discharge – half of them because of medication non-adherence. In a study by Walgreens, researchers found that every 1% improvement in adherence saves about $50 in healthcare spending.

My cousin took meds from as many 20 different bottles. It was nerve wracking watching her pick up a bottle and study the label before taking a pill.  It was clear that this was a complex regimen required for her multiple health issues. Fortunately, she was alert enough to be careful to avoid a mistake. Others may not be so diligent. Among individuals with high blood pressure, 89,000 premature deaths could be avoided each year with appropriate medication treatment – the reasons?  1 in 2 people missed a dose; 1 in 3 forgot if they took the med; 1 in 4 did not get the refill in time.

First, a simple app solution can help. Setting a calendar entry (no app required) or downloading a medication reminder app can help users avoid missing their medication. Free apps, like Pill Reminder (iPhone) and PillsOnTime (Android) also track missed doses. Tracker by Medisafe (iPhone and Android), not only reminds you when it’s time for a refill but enables you to track vitals like blood pressure. Davis’ Drug Guide (iPhone) even contains detailed drug information for patients who have questions about a drug, the possible side effects, or its interactions with other medications.

Next, medication dispensing pre-packaged containers can help with complex regimens. For some individuals, a plastic 7-day pill container provides enough structure. But if problems occur as a result of not taking doses, technology-enabled containers are designed to help prevent both missing a dose or taking the wrong pill. Units are easily connected to the Internet for communication to caregivers about whether the unit was opened at the right time. They include PillPack (recently acquired by Amazon) which delivers the packaged medication doses and has an accompanying app to track information about them.  Then there is MedMinder, an automated dispensing box that can be preloaded by the pharmacy.  PillPack and MedMinder charge just the co-pay medication cost. Finally, consider Philips’ Automated Medication Dispensing Service – in which a caregiver loads up to 40 days of doses which are dispensed in small cups per dose at a cost of $59.95 per month.

A special case, diabetes medication non-adherence is a critical health problem.  Today, the obesity rate for adults 60 and over has risen to 41%. It is estimated that 30% of the overweight adults have diabetes – and most diabetics are overweight. Further, as many as 50% of them do not take adequate medication to manage their blood sugar, accounting for $24.6 billion in avoidable healthcare costs. Although some would say that Americans take too many pills, for many, medication is critical to health and wellbeing—especially diabetics.  And for the 15% of the population that take five or more pills per day, being diligent about taking their medication in conjunction with the right diet, can be especially difficult. Apps for monitoring diet and blood sugar include Glucose Buddy, MySugr, DiabetesConnect, and SugarSense.

 

category tags: 

medication management

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from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/technology-can-help-make-medication-management-smarter

Five tech and aging blog posts from October 2019

October was a long and extravagant month for the tech market.  Between trade events, including the Connected Health Conference in Boston, LeadingAge in San Diego, HLTH in Las Vegas, the Aging 2.0 Revolutionize Conference in Boston which was highlighted by the reveal of Venture Capital investor Dominic Endicott's $2 Trillion Age-Tech market size, making the Consumer Technology Association's $29 Billion look cautious. No doubt there were also many smaller events throughout the country. Here are the October blog posts:

AARP research highlights changes in technology adoption.   What a difference more than a decade makes. Consider a long-ago AARP document that examined technology use of the 65+ population. Remember Healthy@Home in 2008? You probably don’t, but you should read it. Kudos to Linda Barrett who led the production of this milestone report.  The iPhone had just been released in June of 2007, so this survey did not ask about smartphone use – there was no Digital Health (a "check engine light for your body!"); the Longevity Economy hadn’t been invented; Fitbit was a 2007 new clip-on tracker, and Facebook was still a campus toy. The survey was fielded in December of 2007 with a population of 907 adults aged 65-98 (the mean age was 74). This population is rarely surveyed today, despite the growing lifespan of the 65+. Much was revealed, though it is another example (as if we needed one) that the more things change, the more they don’t.   Read more.

Hearing aids should appeal to those with significant hearing loss.  It’s a given that hearing loss interferes with communication – which itself is a risk for social isolation – as well as fall risk and dementia.  Ironically, according to the recently published and comprehensive MarketTrak10 survey, the decision to wear them is so often delayed years – the delay resulting from excuses like “hear well enough; can’t afford; too expensive; no coverage.”  Given the associated risks and isolation from delay, it is surprising that until recently, the devices were well-matched with the excuses.  What’s changed to overcome all of these excuses? Read more.

Announcements of new offerings are arriving – will they/can they be used? Hopefully these 5 will offer benefit that can and will be realized by older adults. Writers of these 2019 articles about the topic are not so sure that new technologies for this population may not be reaching their intended audience. That can be due to a variety of barriers, including fear that they are not using them properly (UCSD study), lack of internet access (which would limit awareness), low technology literacy (TechCrunch), including lack of familiarity with terminology, and physical challenges (research from MPDI). Here are five new technologies that could provide benefit to older adults – content is from the companies.  Read more.

You are increasingly likely to have a wearable -- around your neck or on your wrist. You may collect your own data for your own tracking and use.  For those who see a wearable in a health context, they may be disappointed to know that their doctor doesn’t seem to care or know what to do with your heart rhythm data.  But you can gain great benefit from tracking your performance (exercise, heart rate) – competing with yourself, and feeling the satisfaction from any improvement over time.  What are the benefits of wearables today -- and in the future? Read more.

How much time do we spend setting up our ‘smart’ phones?  Every few years, I change phones. In the past, Android-to-Android, I wasted at least a full day customizing all the ‘improved’ features the way they were on the previous phone, setting up home screens, eliminating bloatware, and downloading apps that did not properly convert.  This time, it took me most of 2 weekend days to set up an iPhone to join family photo sharing. The access to photos – that was one of the good parts. Otherwise, it was maddening and sent me out to forums again and again.  I learned about the also-constant bug-fix upgrades, email addresses masquerading as Apple IDs (don’t get me started) and other apparently arbitrary design decisions whined about online. And then there was the stylistic non-charm of repositioning jiggling apps icons.  But yay, now I see shared photos and learned how to stop auto-play of videos in Safari. Read more.

 

 

category tags: 

wearables, smart watch, hearing loss, smartphones, cell phones

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from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/five-tech-and-aging-blog-posts-october-2019

A new smartphone – life is too short to keep up with such ‘innovation’

How much time do we spend setting up our 'smart' phones?  Every few years, I change phones. In the past, Android-to-Android, I wasted at least a full day customizing all the 'improved' features the way they were on the previous phone, setting up home screens, eliminating bloatware, and downloading apps that did not properly convert.  This time, it took me most of 2 weekend days to set up an iPhone to join family photo sharing. The access to photos – that was one of the good parts. Otherwise, it was maddening and sent me out to forums again and again.  I learned about the also-constant bug-fix updates, email addresses masquerading as Apple IDs (don’t get me started) and other apparently arbitrary design decisions much whined about online. And then there was that stylistic non-charm of repositioning jiggling apps icons.  But yay, now I see shared photos and I learned how to stop the auto-playing of videos in Safari.

Can more training make vendor’s upgrade manipulation appealing?  Not likely. Smartphone upgrade pace is at an all-time low.  Is that, as the author says, because carriers aren’t offering cheap Chinese smartphones?  Bunk.  If your phone is enabling what you need (text, pics, email, browser, fitness tracking, social media) and you have no external motivation (like that family photo share) you won’t upgrade unless your phone is broken or you are a tech glutton for punishment.  Or the vendor makes your phone obsolete. Some iPhone owners in a tiny survey, apparently, switch to Samsung.  Perhaps the move to Android is driven by the iPhone price. Among Android users, my activation of an iPhone is apparently quite rare. Today people are focused on their phones nearly all the time, yakking away loudly in airports or non-stop heads-down texting everywhere – so naturally, it is a must-have appliance. And as with all appliances, if you don’t absolutely have to replace them, you don’t. Especially at today’s prices.  And if you or a family member is unsure about getting a smartphone, be sure to attend a training class before purchasing.

Voice assistants make smartphones more like conduits to the cloud. They are used primarily for playing music at home, shopping, and more recently, having voice assistants in the car. Cloud upgrades are just one of the great features of the Voice First revolution – after the ability to speak and make something happen. Think about this after you start your fifth update of iOS 13. Or you wake up to discover that Verizon is forcing your upgrade of your Android phone (right this minute or later? Choose one).  Admittedly, it is still possible to screw up updating of smart speaker devices from the cloud, like the recent bricking of Apple Home Pod devices and Google Home products.  Hopefully, that won't happen again with what no doubt will be more focused testing.  Ha!

category tags: 

smartphones, cell phones

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from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/new-smartphone-life-too-short-keep-such-innovation

WPVI Pennsylvania News Stops By InnovAge's Grand Opening

InnovAge and NewCourtland Senior Services celebrated the grand opening of InnovAge’s Pennsylvania LIFE - Henry Avenue Center and NewCourtland’s Apartments. Learn more: https://buff.ly/35ha7HF

from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RK0PjDFyQAY

Can wearables help you be healthier and safer?

You are increasingly likely to have a wearable -- around your neck or on your wrist. You may collect your own data for your own tracking and use.  For those who see a wearable in a health context, they may be disappointed to know that their doctor doesn’t seem to care or know what to do with your heart rhythm data.  But you can gain great benefit from tracking your performance (exercise, heart rate) – competing with yourself, and feeling the satisfaction from any improvement over time.  What are the benefits of wearables today -- and in the future?

Measurement matters:

• 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 noted 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.

Getting assistance matters:

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’s 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 are designed to be activated if you fall. Depending on whether the feature is available and also turned on, the device may place a call to emergency services.

 Help you find where you’re going—and be found by others. 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.

 Provide an Electrocardiogram (ECG). Checking for heart arrythmia 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. Experts have expressed cautious optimism, note high level of accuracy and also a suggestion about how best to use the devices for this purpose.

Integration with other services matters:

• Smartphone app integration is not required, but it can be useful. For some wearables, the data collection from the device is collected and presented through an application on the smartphone—for example, Samsung Health or MyFitnessPal. The applications can be set up to enable you to be part of a tracking group, for example, comparing results. As with the Apple Watch (which is paired with a smartphone) or UnaliWear’s Kanega Watch (which doesn’t require a smartphone), the watch can be useful by itself—when the phone is turned off or there is no smartphone.

• Emergency notifications can alert family or professional caregivers. For those worried about health issues or fall risk, setup is critical. Who in the care circle should be alerted in an emergency? Although it may sound sensible to contact 911, those responders have complained about false alerts from accidental taps on the watch. One firm, Fall Call Solutions, has created an app for the Apple Watch that will contact a screening call center first, as is done by MobileHelp Smart.

• Wearables can be set up to share information with the doctor. For example, if a person has had heart trouble in the past, they may want the doctor to be informed. One of the concerns about health-related wearables is the role of the health provider. While the device can transmit information to your doctor, does the doctor even want it or know what to do with it?

• Wearables can notify emergency professionals.  If you’re over 65, Apple Watch can notify emergency responders if you fall – as in this example of an 80-year-old woman.  However, after the product was launched, emergency responders expressed concerns about too many false calls.  The devices must be configured with a set of caregiving responders, which could include family, professional caregivers, or a call center.   That can be set up directly on a device or through the use of an app, like Fall Call’s Elder Check Now.

 What’s next for Wearables and Older Adults?

Although there have been periods of pessimism about the staying power of wearables, most agree that they are here to stay—with a greater role in the future for baby boomers and beyond, whether they reside at home or in a senior living setting. Some think that baby boomers will drive market growth in 2019, with 8 million of those aged 55+ owning a smartwatch by the end of the year. One reason for a surge in adoption has been a drop in prices—some are now under $200. For the older adult, a wearable may help a person who lives alone feel safer knowing that a fall will be detected, or a useful warning will be provided, as in the case of irregular heart rhythms. And future benefits are likely from developments in:

• Hearables. These are recent innovations designed to look cooler than hearing aids and fit in or around the ear. Each of their functions, such as in-ear amplification, translation, fitness, predictive analytics, are available now, synchronizing activity data with a smartphone.
• Smart clothing.  The term refers to any clothing item enhanced with some functionality-adding technology, including smart socks, smart shoes, active wear, and even a smart business suit. 
• Smart glasses. At first glance, will this innovation resonate—including the dubious potential of Snapchat smart glasses to capture photos of what you’re looking at in real time and upload them to Snapchat?  But in reality, smart glasses are an innovation that may also be used to help the legally blind actually see what’s around them.

 

category tags: 

wearables, smart watch, Mobile PERS

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from Tips For Aging In Place https://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/can-wearables-help-you-be-healthier-and-safer