Seniors Safety Choice and Independence at Home, How technolgy can help

A growing number of older Americans choose to continue living
in their homes as long as they can. The MetLife Mature Marketing
Institute reports that 91 percent of Americans who are approaching
retirement age — those 50 to 65 — say they want to remain in their own
homes after they retire.
Responding to this “aging in place” trend, a variety of organizations
have created solutions to assist seniors with living safely and
independently in their own homes. For example, the National
Association of Home Builders has created the Certified Aging-in-
Place Specialist program to help seniors adapt their homes for their
later years. The trend also will call for increased in-home caregiving
services. As the Centers for Disease Control reported in the 2007
“State of Aging and Health in America,” 88 percent of seniors have at
least one chronic health condition and 30 percent have three or more.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services adds that more
than two-thirds of older Americans who need daily assistance are now
living at home. This includes more than 70 percent of persons with
Alzheimer’s disease.
The Challenges Of Aging
Our nation’s elderly population is increasing at a far greater rate than
the overall population, a result of advances in medical science and
technology that have lengthened life expectancy. The 65 and older
population increased eleven-fold during the 20th century, compared
to three-fold for the entire population.
Now at nearly 40 million, the 65+ group will more than double by
2050. This growth will be fueled by 76 million baby boomers, the
first of whom will turn 65 in 2011. Consequently, current systems for
elderly care are being stretched. And as more and more seniors choose
“home sweet home” over institutional care, demand for in-home
caregivers — professional and family — will increase. To read more about safety at home and how technology can help, click on the webstite: http://www.comfortkeepers.com/content/view/274/284/

Personal care monitoring, life alert and alarms to keep senior safe in the home

We all know the famous commercial where the lady is laying on the ground yelling, “Help me I fallen and can’t get up!” The commercial is for the life line or life alert machine that calls for help for her. Interestingly enough the commercials have now evolved to a daughter and a mother who are sitting and the daughter explains to all of us how the machine kept her mother out of the facility.
The marketing strategy is to try and convince a senior that having that machine is the answer to being placed in a facility. Well, I have news for that poor senior…the machine is not the answer. The answer to staying out of a facility is safety not a machine that calls for help if you push it.
And that is the key, remembering to push it. Any person who is well of mind and able to push the button will probably not end up in a long term care facility. Most people who have a well brain and their memory are intact can manage with physical impairments with some help in the house. Once in a while there is an exception and a person does require so much assistance that long term care is recommended but for the most part a person who can push the button can call for help.
If the person has memory impairment, the machine is of no use. The person forgets they are wearing the pendant and forgets how the machine works and will often take off the pendant and leave it on the counter.
Now there are other mechanisms that the senior does not have to push or to operate to get it to call for help. There are things like fall detectors that client can wear - about the size of a cell phone that will go off automatically if the client falls. It registers the jarring of the body against something and it goes off on its own and calls for help. A good example of this is when you sit in a recliner chair and you hit the button and the chair throws you back into a reclining position. If you were wearing the detector it would probably go off. It thinks you fell from the quick jerk of your body.
Other mechanisms such as wall mounted video cameras and motion detectors are fairly sophisticated and can do things like keep track via the internet whether your senior has risen and moved around in the home. The mechanism works much like a motion detector but only opposite. The motion detector say on a building has a light go off if someone walks by it alerting that someone is there. The motion detectors for seniors are opposite. If the senior does not go by one of them for a period of time say a half hour - you program in the time you want, the detector goes off and sends an alert via the e-mail system, phone, fax however you set it up that your loved one is not moving around.
There is so much technology out there to help keep your senior safe and at home. Again the most important thing is their safety. You can have all the gadgets in the world but if they don’t work when you need them to or do the job of keeping your senior safe, they are worthless and waste of money. For more information on technology available go to our website: http://wwww.comfortkeepers.com