originally appeared in the NY Times, February 13, 2009
Increasingly, many older people who live alone are not truly alone. They are being watched by a flurry of new technologies designed to enable them to live independently and avoid expensive trips to the emergency room or nursing homes.
Bertha Branch, 78, discovered the power of a system called eNeighbor when she fell to the floor of her Philadelphia apartment late one night without her emergency alert pendant and could not phone for help.
A wireless sensor under Ms. Branch’s bed detected that she had gotten up. Motion detectors in her bedroom and bathroom registered that she had not left the area in her usual pattern and relayed that information to a central monitoring system, prompting a call to her telephone to ask if she was all right. When she did not answer, that incited more calls — to a neighbor, to the building manager and finally to 911, which dispatched firefighters to break through her door. She had been on the floor less than an hour when they arrived. (more…)
Technology: Helping Seniors Stay Home Longer As the baby boomer generation ages and the amount of healthcare workers to take care of them decreases, experts are looking for solutions. The fine folks over at Carnegie Mellon University have adopted the attitude “Well if we can’t find elderly care workers, we’ll build them!” And that’s exactly what their research team did. Introducing Flo: a personal robotic assistant for the elderly, or Nursebot. The project was tested in a Pittsburgh nursing home, where Flo would help guide people around and would remind them when it was time to eat or when it was appropriate to take their medications. The goal is to have Flo at home, providing assistance for people whose chronic disorders prevent them from living normal lives. (more…)
Being at the bedside of a dying person is a profound and often life-changing experience. It was for me. I got to know more about my dad and who he was as he was dying than in all of the previous years he was alive. Having had a traditional fear of dying, I was not prepared for the honesty and raw emotion that comes with helping a person die “well”. In the end, it was the hospice people that showed us incredible grace and compassion. I am forever grateful for their dedication to families like mine.
It was with great interest that I read the following article from today’s NY Times, about the new breed of non-denominational hospice chaplains. They are true heroes and deserves our deep admiration. I hope you enjoy the story: (more…)
It’s been a while since I have blogged. I thought I would break myself back in slowly by sharing a video instead of writing. This program for seniors is needed. I hope you take the time to watch this video and learn about the PACE program.
Learn about Hospice from Linda Vance, Director of Volunteer Services for Hospice of the Valley in Phoenix, Arizona. She talks about how hospice cares for the family unit, how to use Medicare to pay for hospice care and how hospice care is not only for the last 48 hours of life.
Volunteers are a vital part of the day-today operations of hospice. Find out about how volunteering for hospice can be a life changing experience.
Get ready for our roving reporters, Sam and Sadie Silver, as they span the globe looking for interesting and fun senior news!
