Category Archives: Older care
How Smart Tech Will Take Care of Grandma
Motion sensors watch an elderly man’s movement around his home
By Kiona Smith-Strickland
Lena Almquist, a Giraff robot and Malin Nilsson at the 4th Annual Elderly Festival in Örebro Sweden.
Giraffplus
February 4, 2014 12:30 PM
Motion sensors watch an elderly man’s movement around his home, looking for stumbles or extended stillness that could mean a fall or a medical emergency. Smart appliances look for changes in a woman’s routine and alert caregivers to possible distress. An automated home-safety assistant offers an Alzheimer’s patient a gentle reminder to turn off the stove before he walks away.
The great hope for senior care is that smart technology will provide an assist that helps older people live independently and stay in their homes rather than have to move to an assisted living center or nursing home. The question is, what shape will that assistance take? Out-of-the-way, non-intrusive sensors? Or actual robots, like the happy little helper in Robot & Frank? Some tech companies have already begun to design systems of both kinds.
Smart Home in a Box?
At Washington State University (WSU), computer science professor Diane Cook and psychology professor Maureen Schmitter-Edgecombe have developed what they call a smart home in a box. Wall-mounted sensors monitor a person’s movement around the home, while other sensors track the status of water faucets, stovetops, and other appliances. An automated system can speak up and remind the resident to turn off the stove or alert him or her to other home safety concerns.
New free Which? website will help carers
New free Which? website will help carers Worried about an elderly relative? Which? can help
15 February 2014
The free Which? Elderly Care website launches as Which? research finds that people are struggling to make care arrangements for older relatives.
New Which? research finds that only 40% of those aged 40-60 – the ‘sandwich generation’ who usually look after both their children and older relatives – feel confident making decisions about arranging care. And around four in ten (44%) with elderly relatives are worried about this responsibility.
The free-to-use Which? Elderly Care website offers practical information and advice for those arranging care for a relative, covering how to choose a care option, factors to consider, what options are available, and ways to finance each choice.
The Elderly Care website will help people find the right information for their circumstances, which our research revealed is hard to find:
45,000 elderly and disabled people in North-East and N Yorkshire have ‘lost’ council-funded care
MORE than 45,000 elderly and disabled people across the region have “lost” council-funded care in just three years, campaigners are warning.
9:40pm Wednesday 12th February 2014 in News By Robert Merrick, Parliamentary Correspondent
Fall in access to social care The huge decline – of almost one fifth across the North-East and Yorkshire – is the result of “chronic underfunding” of town halls, the Care and Support Alliance said.
Cash-starved authorities are being forced to “ration” care – even to people who need help to “to get up, get washed, and get dressed and get out of the house”
Now the Alliance is warning the Government’s flagship plans to reform the battered care system will fail unless councils are given “long term, sustainable funding”.
Richard Hawkes, its chairman, said: “Like most other parts of the country, the North-East and Yorkshire are experiencing a squeeze on social care.
“Chronic underfunding has left large numbers of older and disabled people, who need support to do the basics, like getting up or out of the house, cut out of the care system.”
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