Family caregivers

So many posts, 2011 was such a short year. For those of you news junkies or folks with too many Google alerts, like me you must be drowning in recaps of the 2011 best movies, worst mistakes, top tech this, worst tech that. So as the year rapidly slips to a close, I thought I'd recap the most read posts from Aging in Place Technology Watch written during 2011, beginning, not so cleverly, from the beginning of the year:

Sharpening the end of life discussion. Jane Gross published a New Old Age blog this week in the NY Times called Mad as Hell. The gist of it was about how retired Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman is starting up the "Conversation Project, one of many nascent efforts to make the rigors of caregiving and advanced old age into a kitchen-table issue — not just a topic for policy wonks and health care professionals." Ellen and Jane are talking about 'family caregiving'. Something is not quite right, though, about this article and other 'conversations' that depend on first stating the facts about seniors and where they live, what they live on, and who takes care of them.

Two disruptive technologies now in one company -- Skype and Kinect.  Looking back at the past year of technologies that could make a difference in the lives of older adults, I have often thought that Skype and Kinect, not smartphones and tablets, might be the two most significant. Skype because it brings long distance families together (so many examples!) and Kinect because it enables an interaction without the limitations of a mouse, keyboard, or controller. Now both of these are Microsoft's -- and once they've figured out how to commercialize them, we can expect Microsoft, as they have throughout their history, to treat them like platforms for a broad ecosystem of willing partners to extend into new applications.  And therefore, there will be apps that make a difference in the lives of older adults.