Beacon Hill Village created a concept out of need... Long ago, the topic of aging in place was born within the pioneer community of the ‘Village’ movement -- Beacon Hill Village. Judy Willett led the way 19 years ago in Boston to help neighborhood seniors stay in their homes longer. That’s not a small trick if you consider that Beacon Hill is a neighborhood of steep cobblestone streets, no easy-in subway stop, and --- argggh – every year, residents, most in their 70’s at that time -- must cope with winter! Today Beacon Hill Village has 400 members who benefit from aggregated services that include "social clubs, weekly exercise classes and lectures, transportation to doctors’ offices and grocery stores, and access to reduced-fee home medical care and home repair services."
Wearables are new to most older adults in 2021. But that will change in the coming years as broad market acceptance drives interest among the 65+ population. Adoption will grow as the price points become more affordable; and most important, as the data from wearables becomes more actionable, informative, and predictive of future change. Within five years, doctors will see the benefit in guiding older adults to their usage. Chronic disease monitoring through wearables will see the most substantial growth.
Wearables are nothing new – except in how they are used. The Quantified Self movement, coined as a term in Wired in 2007, simply described the growing interest in tracking those personal characteristics that could be recorded and analyzed by the user of wearable technology. From activity trackers that gained popularity in the past decade, to introduction of smart watches by Apple in 2015, the adoption of wearables by older adults has continued to grow. New products fuel interest about their potential for older adult health-related benefit, such as the Oura Ring, the Apple Watch Series 6 and the Samsung Galaxy Watch 3 Active, or the Bose SoundControl hearing aid.
March was an unusually innovative age tech month – now let’s get organized. What did it all mean? Here’s a thought about this market, where the beneficiary of an innovation is an older adult, and the innovation could improve quality of life. A federal agency (or other national entity) could help individuals and organizations find a product that is needed with a product/service registry. A government agency could start a registry of these products/services – this one with staying power. You might remember AbleData – a product registry of 40,000 mobility aids and assistive technologies. It was conceived in 1982 and rolled into the responsibility of a federal agency in 1984, now part of the Administration for Community Living. What happened? Its useful website lasted more than 35 years. Then in 2020 it was abruptly shut down – with no further explanation - a caution for the next age tech registry. Here are the four blog posts from March 2020:
Beacon Hill Village created a concept out of need... Long ago, the topic of aging in place was born within the pioneer community of the ‘Village’ movement -- 
March was an unusually innovative age tech month – now let’s get organized. 