Isn’t March a l-o-n-g month? So many weeks, so many blog posts to, uh, post. Note the top trends that matter this year. Many changes underway in the enabling tech categories for older adults – including the importance of tech for home care agencies – not just the apps for the workers, but for care recipients, such as remote monitoring. And for hearing aid wearers, the smartphone can carry multiple apps that improve their quality of life. Finally, the smartwatch, aka personal emergency response device, gets another entrant – and the very first mobile PERS ('medical alert') company, Mobile Help, is acquired. Summing up the month:
Design improvements that benefit all will benefit older adults and caregivers. Unlike niche hardware and software for seniors, basic Voice First platforms and software will change rapidly and without disruption for users – accompanied by a ‘What’s New’ weekly email and a few suggestions on new tricks to try – but the changes behind the front-facing features will make the most difference. With the 2018 lens to guide the market today, here are a few ways the user experience and thus the ecosystem should have ratcheted upwards:
Why should home care agencies boost awareness of remote monitoring? Both types of monitoring are increasingly likely to be found by home care professionals entering a new care recipient’s home. The objective of these remote monitoring technologies is to help healthcare teams, care workers and/or families understand if any issues are occurring inside the home when they cannot be there in person. Patients with chronic diseases or those who are discharged from hospitals may benefit from the use of RPM technology to monitor significant chronic diseases like diabetes, hypertension or congestive heart failure, and especially to avoid a recurrence of an issue that would require readmission.
Voice technology in 2022 – living up to hope and hype? By 2018, it seemed possible that Voice First technology (and its associated AI software) could transform the technology user experience for older adults (see report: The Future of Voice First Technology and Older Adults 2018). Fairly new at the time, a few senior living organizations embraced it for its home automation potential, possibility of concierge services -- turn on the lights! Raise the blinds! Book me on the afternoon trip!. The generally accepted view was that this technology was going to be “Easy, Cheap, Useful, Smart, and Connected (home automation that just works).” Amazon’s Alexa service ran on multiple variants of cheap hardware. Like Apple’s Siri, the software’s understanding of requests was relatively weak (compared to Google Assistant, which emerged in 2018 on Android and iOS).
SAN DIEGO and SEOUL, South Korea, Jan. 4, 2022 /PRNewswire/ --Independa, an award-winning TV-based platform providing remote engagement, education and care, today announced a new global partnership to offer the Independa Health Hub — an integrated ecosystem of health offerings — to be first launched on all 2021
The Independa Health Hub provides consumers with bi-directional video communication that allows users to connect with healthcare providers, wellness services, family and friends in the comfort of their homes through their LG televisions.