Aging and Health Technology Watch

Many products and services want to help mitigate aging issues.  The great news is that I meet and hear new vendors tackling one or more opportunities emerging from our 'longevity revolution'. As I just heard AgeWave's Ken Dychtwald describe yesterday, we are in the midst of the first global societal experience in history of what it means when people live as long as they do today.

Excuses everywhere as to why not this and can't do that.

In a non-travel week, I have more time to speak to vendors, both pre-launch and launched.  Here are three launched to add to the list of tech vendors to support caregiving (or 'circle of care' as it is sometimes described). None require any specialized equipment or device in the home. And no doubt each would welcome your contacting them to learn more about their offerings:

There's no such thing as bad publicity.  This study is being reprinted on every website that has even a remote connection to boomers, seniors, or game-playing or is suffering from a slow news day. (Although you have to wonder how senior housing executives will react to seeing it published in McKnight's).

You've got products to improve the lives of AARP members. This week I had a chance to chat with Jackie Berdy, who is 'Exhibition Space and Sponsorship Programs Consultant' for the AARP Orlando@50+ event September 30-October 2.

Assumptions, aspirations, and realism.  In recent here-there-everywhere travels, I was often intrigued by assumptions that were cited as fact.  I heard about barriers to adoption, narrow-cast definitions of broader opportunities, and sweeping generalizations about markets too broad to characterize. That last, of course, is the so-called baby boomer market -- discussed all day at a well-run event in Tampa -- the Florida Boomer Lifestyle Conference.

Groups, groups, and more groups.

Newspaper writers are bored but assigned to the age beat. How lucky. We have yet another entry in the annals of 'why seniors hate computers news' library. This one from the Boston Globe searches for a way to write condescendingly about seniors and their fear and loathing when it comes to using a computer.

MetLife study of working caregivers -- they're not well.  A 2010 study sponsored by MetLife examined the effect on healthcare costs associated with working caregivers who had elder care responsibilities, comparing their responses to non-caregiver employees.

What begins with C?