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High Tech Elder Care May Be Mixed Blessing
Hugh Pickens writes "Gerontologists say 'aging in place' vastly improves the quality of life for seniors, and is a lot cheaper for society than group homes and institutions. The trick is to do so without jeopardizing the health and safety of older people, which is why 480 people are taking part in pilot programs in Portland, Oregon that outfit homes with technology so elderly people can be monitored for illness or infirmity. With the first wave of baby boomers turning 65 this year, corporations such as Intel see lucrative new business opportunities tending to a generation of people accustomed to doing things their own way. As part of a test, Dorothy Rutherford's two-bedroom condominium has been outfitted with an array of electronic monitoring gear that might eventually find its way to retail shelves. Motion sensors along hallways and ceilings record her gait and walking speed. A monitor on her back door observes when she leaves the house, and another one on the refrigerator keeps tabs on how often she's eating. A special bed laced with sensors can assess breathing patterns, heart rate and general sleep quality, a pill box fitted with electronic switches records when medication is taken, and a Wii video game system has been rejiggered so that players stand on a platform that measures their weight and balance. But there is the downside, as some experts on the aging population worry that making it easier for elderly people to stay in their homes could reduce the incentive for children to visit or could create a false sense that technology can foresee every problem and address every need."
The second is already true as well as obvious. The first is a stretch on the second in that kids who don't really give a damn in the first place may use the existence of such tech as an excuse to skip checking up on the old folks at home. Truth of the matter is that either the kids care or they don't---such additions to the scene won't make much of a difference. Frankly, when the time came I was much more comfortable visiting my mother at home in surroundings that we were both 'comfortable' in; so anything that contributes to that would be a good thing in my experience.
GE and Intel are lining up for a big suck on the elder care teat. It's nice that some monitor in some remote location will beep when they have a problem - but by the time they get the message, and get a medical team on site (from Wyoming?) it's going to be a bit on the "too late" side. Letting the old folks live out their lives and die at home is a good thing; they'll enjoy a better quality of life and they won't be stuck with crippling medical bills. But I'm having a little trouble figuring out how a few dozen kilobucks worth of GE and Intel stuff is going to do anything to improve their lives. The only winners here are the corporations - with luck, they can get federal healthcare funds to pay for all of it (at properly inflated prices).
My mother has been diabetic for thirty plus years. Currently she uses a pump which has a sensor system which can partially measure her glucose level. It is not terribly accurate and has to be calibrated a lot. She is still required to test her blood sugar levels a few times a day as she is NOT allowed to rely on the sensor readings for accuracy. If she gets very low at night it beeps then eventually vibrates. So it can at least determine relative levels of glucose and report the direction its going but they are not convenient. The sensor has to be changed every three days (they are not cheap) and there is a decent failure rate.
So what am I getting at. I like the direction this is going and I do not believe it will make a nation of shut ins or have families feel as if they can ignore their elders. If they are going to ignore their elders (parents) then they will regardless of what technology does. If anything this might help keep them in contact more often because like the article states you can be told if mom took her medicine, if she is eating regularly. I would not mind a monitoring system which could alert on emergencies because that is the real point of all this monitoring - we cannot be there 24x7 but machines can.
I would certainly be willing to pay for monitoring of my parents health so that emergency persons can be sent when the need arises. Hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) is not something you can recover from unless you catch it quickly. My mother can stay conscious with blood sugar levels in the 40s but when it gets below 60 she acts "silly drunk" and may not realize the trouble she is in. At the same time 500+ in her can be fine but it should be noted because in diabetes one common thing I have found is far too many doctors don't agree on causes or when something is a problem, let alone how to always fix it.
More monitoring options will add more years of good living. Now this opens up the next problem, paying for all these years. For some of us giving up the little things won't be hard for the big things in life.
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The problem isn't that workers don't know the patients are sick. That's why a person is in a nursing home in the first place, because they have something wrong with them that makes it impossible to care for themselves. The problem is that workers in some of these places get complacent, and let the elderly lie in one spot for days at a time until they get bed sores, or let them lay in their own excrement, or make them suffer in other ways just because it's too inconvenient to fulfill their needs. Unfortunately neither this technology nor any other is going to fix that.
If your children are only visiting you because they're afraid you might be dead, you need better children.
On the flip side, if they're only visiting because they're hoping you're dead, you should have been a better parent.
Now, you're on to something.
The irritating part of all this, the main goals is to reduce costs, not improve lives or reduce the need for qualified personnel.
I agree and disagree: we have to reduce costs. We have to ask ourselves if keeping grandpa alive for another week (unconscious or in sever pain or zonked out of his gourd ) is really benefiting him. We need to get away from the idea that any extension of life at all cost is worth it. We live and we die - we as a society need to accept that.
As far as reducing costs - how about the medical suppliers lesson their margins? They use the excuse that government regulations and litigation makes them charge so much, but it's an exaggeration. They pass the cost of all that and a few hundred percent markup - I've been there, I've seen it.
If you follow the money of the folks who lobby against any Government health care you always end up with the insurance, drug and medical supply companies. Isn't that interesting?
The way to deal with all this is to have medical costs much more transparent. For any medical treatment, procedure or anything, just try to get a price. You can't. Medical prices are so obfuscated, people just don't have any idea what things really cost and therefore, they have this cost is no object mentality.
I for one do NOT want to burden my family with a long drawn out illness - financially or emotionally.
High tech care may be a mixed blessing, but what we do know for certain is that human care will get worse. The ratio of working population to retirees will change a lot over the next 30 years, Already nurses and home aid are on the stop watch, you can't make it that much more effective to matter. Meanwhile a lot of the industry has gone from making a thousand to a million units with robots, automation and computers. A gadget will be getting cheaper and cheaper while human time gets more and more expensive. Politicians can lie as much as they like but looking at the fundamentals you see that it is inevitable.
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Can they program these robots to steal the old persons valuables too?
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Upon seeing the headline, my first thought was of Roujin Z.
I guess that's for when they can't get by on their own and simple monitoring won't do.
End of line..
The problem with multigenerational homes, is that the elderly often feel they have right to control the life of their adult children.
We have to ask ourselves if keeping grandpa alive for another week (unconscious or in sever pain or zonked out of his gourd ) is really benefiting him.
My one grandfather got a pacemaker/defibrillator circa 2003. It had a defective battery, and his cardiologist replaced it circa 2007.
Grandma passed away in 2005, and by 2007 Grandpa was mostly ready to go himself. But his Cardiologist saw "low battery", Medicare and United Healthcare were covering the $50k for the replacement pacemaker, and by that point Grandpa was just along for the ride.
He went anemic ~2 weeks after the replacement surgery. I took him to the hospital, where they found a bleeding tumor in his stomach. He started hospice care later that week, and lived for another 2 years (hospice care was good to Grandpa - we think he liked the attention).
Medical prices are so obfuscated, people just don't have any idea what things really cost and therefore, they have this cost is no object mentality.
I think it's more, "if someone else is paying, why should I care what it costs?"
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Same goes when the elderly aren't at home. That's a pretty large reason their adult children don't visit. It seems to be difficult for parents to treat their children as responsible adults, regardless of their absolute age.
Indeed, for anyone who would use "the technology cares for you" as an excuse not to come, "the people working in your retirement home are caring for you" is an even better excuse. Especially if they can add "and you have also so many other people living there to talk to."
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