aging in place

Ask and you shall receive – approximately.   How many health apps are available for the iPhone? Says Google – there are 60,000 health apps (eliminating the medical category) in the App Store. Grok says 76,451, ChatGPT says 82,000.  And ChatGPT, as a good spy, went a step further, though not asked – claiming that there is no official count of apps for aging in place, caregiving, dementia, hearing, and medication management.  And Apple does not count these as a separate category anyway.  

Startups targeting the older adult market segments continue to emerge.  The oldest baby boomer has reached age 80 and many will live well past that age. Reports are emerging that assess this longevity phenomenon.. Many live alone, and some may be in need of the emerging technologies to help preserve quality of life and independence. These could appear in the caregiving space, offer check in calls to older adults living alone, strategies for aging in place, or assisting the hearing impaired. Here are five new technologies for older adults that have emerged in recent weeks and months.  The text is derived directly from the websites of the companies themselves.

Looking back to see the future.  Tech for older adults has been a market category for a long time.  It is documented in a 2009 Market Overview as ‘Tech for Aging in Place’ and is accompanied by a categorized list of tech companies that fit the needs of older adults at that time.  What is striking about this report? It’s basic assertions are unchanged – people want to remain in their own homes, as independent as possible.  The cost of long-term care was daunting and largely out of reach in 2009.  Assisted living cost was $36K/year in 2007 and was projected to grow to $51K by 2015.  Actually, it exceeded $75,000 in 2026, still largely paid out of pocket from savings and social security income – today only 3% of Americans have long-term care insurance.

Flipping the script on aging – an interesting concept.  No surprise that Dolly Parton and Cher, both now age 80, exemplify the script flip. That flip includes the substantial cosmetic work that each has had to produce a new (and then newer) face.  Both are still performing – as are numerous other 80+ rock stars like Mick Jagger and Paul McCartney.  Good for them. I guess.  Is this an aspiration to be shared by the millions of baby boomers headed toward or arrived at 80?  Is playing pickleball the standard by which 80-year-olds want to be measured?  How about drug-facilitated weight loss?

This Aging in Place Tech blog was launched officially in 2009. We asked ChatGPT to give the December, 2009 blogs a review and compare them to October, 2025 blogs to see what changed in terms of topics and tone.  In 2009, it detected an emerging market and observations about immature and simplistic products and gadgetry. Remember GE’s acquisition of QuietCare? It detected frustration with fragmented markets, poor adoption and naïve assumptions in the market about older adults. ChatGPT also noticed observations about poor usability and lack of integration among products, vendor hype (touch screens had just emerged), as well as the need for market education.  The belief in 2009 was that older adults could and would adopt technology if it is useful and respectful.

If your older family members are like most, they do not want to move to senior living. Life expectancy for the 65+ is another 20 years (both men and women).  For those who love their homes, there is no appeal to spending that 20-year life span in a senior living community, even if viewed as affordable – a view not shared by most.  In fact, according to a Harvard housing study, only 13 percent can afford an assisted living facility in their area. And when asked, senior housing industry execs agree that the so-called middle market option never really materialized, though they offer hope: “From an industry perspective, these trends point to the need to keep evolving to address affordability and access while communicating the value of senior living as a proactive solution, not a last resort.”