Aging and Health Technology Watch

Just wrapped up a fascinating day at the Boomer Venture Summit at Santa Clara University.  High point for me was listening to the top guru of the age-related media world, Ken Dychtwald -- who sees our future as a series of life cycle changes that marketers have yet to understand and correctly target -- not the least of which is the 'tipping point' of

I am exhausted thinking about my later years. So many studies -- it makes you breathless -- show a correlation between reduced incidence of dementia and certain behaviors. Do people who remain sharp choose these activities? Or do these activities help people remain sharp? Oops, sorry. Nobody really knows.

But as we anticipate the future, and newspapers capitalize on their and our impossible-to-calm fear of dementia, prepare to hustle.

The medication reminder world has had three tiers of product offerings -- telephone-based reminders, reminders linked to emergency response offerings, and electronic pillboxes. And medication errors, including those from incorrectly filling pillboxes, continue to be vexing.

Please tell me I am wrong.

Jitterbug announced a new phone this past week -- the Jitterbug J -- that I find striking -- simply because of its newly announced LiveNurse capability, offered as an additional service. Base service rate plans have risen from $10/month to $14.99 (50 minutes).  The $147 phone (not cheap!) is Bluetooth compatible, sleeker looking, with a speaker for hands-free/headset use.

It's a great move forward for seniors to connect to the Internet and find purpose in their lives, as this Times article describes.  The 14 hours a day spent on Eons and PoliceLink.com -- I guess that's good.

It's always hard to tell whether something is observation or insight (or just plain wrong). But I've done 13 interviews in the past few months about home health technologies, with vendors ranging from A (Advanced Warning Systems) to Z (Zume Life). I am beginning to see a pattern about product offerings that seems to have three dimensions. These may be related to product success long term -- cost, capital, clinician involvement.

By 2013, phone-based navigation will be the dominant form of turn-by-turn navigation -- today more than one-third of North American consumers own or use some form of navigation services. So says a new Forrester Research analysis.

So I've said it: Technology access for senior housing residents (along with financial counseling on how to sell their homes) should be a differentiator now -- while facility unutilized capacity is so obvious and painful. Swapping out aging infrastructure could even save them money in their operations.

Recently I sat next to a neurologist on a flight who complained to me about a vexing problem. Elderly patients with dementia would arrive at her office to have their medications adjusted, but would bring no documentation of what they were already taking. Often the patient arrived from an Assisted Living or nursing home facility -- their excuse? Carrying the paperwork in the van was a violation of the patient's privacy.