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Internet of Things Set To Change the Face of Dementia Care (theguardian.com)
The internet of things, also known as connected things, have been in the news lately for all the wrong reasons, but that doesn't mean they are utterly rubbish. Smart bottles that dispense the correct dose of medication at the correct time, for instance, coupled with digital assistants, and chairs that know how long you've sat in them are among the devices set to change the face of care for those living with dementia. From a report on The Guardian: While phone calls and text messages help to keep people in touch, says Idris Jahn, head of health and data at IoTUK, a program within the government-backed Digital Catapult, problems can still arise, from missed appointments to difficulties in taking medication correctly. But he adds, connected sensors and devices that collect and process data in real time could help solve the problem. "For [people living with dementia] the sensors would be more in the environment itself, so embedded into the plug sockets, into the lights -- so it is effectively invisible. You carry on living your life but in the background things will monitor you and provide feedback to people who need to know," he said. "That might be your carer, it might be your family, it might be your clinician." The approach, he added, has the potential to change the way care is given. "It is having that cohesive mechanism to put everyone into the loop, which I think hasn't existed in the past and it is something that people need."
The problems of the Internet of Things don't go away with uses such as this, they are exacerbated! IoT things need to be constructed with appropriate security models for their deployments, or else there will be no end of problems resulting from their use.
The examples given in TFS are just Things, not Internet. None of them need to be connected to 4chan.
What people suffering from Dementia really need is the option to decide to leave this world on their own terms while the disease still hasn't robbed them of the ability to make those type of decisions
Entertaining pieces with the words could, should, might, or may in the title as though they are fact? Pretty please? Some of us are actually interested in what is possible and happening right NOW.
What exactly is it about IOTUK that makes it so uniquely different from IOT?
Once these systems are available, they WILL be made mandatory, "For your protection and in case of an emergency." Somewhere in the bowels of the NSA, there are analysts drooling at a full-on implementation of "1984."
already in Japan.
Security isn't needed if you give away too much data to process
So now when my senile grandfather says that his pill bottles and bathroom fixtures are talking to him... he may actually be right?
I can see the synergy between elderly people and IoT devices -- the elderly rarely use the internet, so so the IoT devices can use that otherwise idle bandwidth to run DoS attacks -- it's a win-win for everyone!
IoT will help dementia care here, too. No need to remember your password when all the things have the same default!
Security isn't needed if you give away too much data to process
There is something to be said for safety in numbers, or in the herd. The more different IOT devices that are out there, the risk of any one getting attacked is lowered, and the likelihood an attack is discovered before it hits your specific device is increased. Of course there is also some increase in risk of attack on a specific device type just because it is popular.
Security isn't needed if you give away too much data to process
Or if the data isn't sensitive and the device is only monitoring but not controlling anything essential. Still I bring this point up all the time as I'm very interested in getting into Industrial IoT, which is where I see it having the most benefits and can help with many real world problems. Much of the commercial and residential ideas for it are just plain misguided solutions in search of problems though.
Dementia set to change the face of Internet of Things
Given the example provided, a bottle automatically dispenses the right amount of pills at the right time. IoT simply gives someone the ability to make a whole lot of bottles behave differently, giving extra or no medication on time. In both cases severe complications can arise, so the "benefit" turns into a major detriment very quickly.
Hackers of all kinds daily prove why there is no possible way to have Internet Utopia. It is foolish to have such a belief, and propagating that belief does temporary good for some who profit and damage to many overall. How many extra fees do you have to pay for everything today for "protection"?
IoT has trivial world value. "My Fridge" on the internet sounds great until someone orders you $90,000 worth of caviar to fill it with. Sure, some protections can be put in place but you can not protect everything all the time.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
I have long viewed dementia care as a perfect realm for some kind of AI. I kind of figured it'll be a combination of Google Glass, Uber self driving cars and things like that. Chairs that know you sat in them, awesome too. All of this is great if implemented securely. Google Glass tells you where to go when and who each person is that you meet, and reminds you of recent dialogue as well. Only the latest stages of dementia will not receive any benefit from this me thinks; the rest, if happy dementia patients, are going to have a relatively independent and free life, which is all anyone really wants.
Did you ever wake up in the morning, with a Zombie Woof behind your eyes? -- FZ
Dementia is not just memory loss. It is also cognitive decline, mis-remembering and at times hallucinations.
IoT only works in the "dementia use case" when the patient can remember what to do when a light flashes, the pill door opens or some other device alert occurs. And as the patient declines and there are fewer and fewer "cognitive enough" periods, these systems will not produce the expected reaction from the patient. And after a while (a pretty short while actually) the patient won't know and won't care. After that another human is necessary to make sure things happen at the correct time. This won't change until the smart AI assistant robots arrive.
The promise of the current generation of IoT gadgets like GPS tracking watches, motion/occupancy detectors, remotely controlled door locks, switches that monitor the refrigerator door to automated pill dispensers are only useful during a pretty short transition period between self-care and a locked memory care assisted living campus.
Companies selling these IoT devices for this use case are really selling false hope.
I've seen other posts here that suggest that the afflicted should be allowed to commit suicide. But very few now actually commit suicide before they are already too far gone to be considered legally competent. Because you can't be competent when you can't remember what happened a minute ago.
Dementia patients don't even notice they aren't remembering or thinking properly unless someone or the physical universe points it out. Then the general reaction is likely frustration or anger, because what they think is going on is not.
Look at the documentary on singer Glen Campbell called "Glen Campbell... I'll Be Me." to get an idea of what dementia is like.
https://www.rottentomatoes.com...
And while watching think about how applicable IoT is to him.
Facebook is billions of individual "Skinner Boxes." And if you use it you are the pigeon!
The risk isn't just about your data. If a device is roped into a botnet, at the time it's supposed to be delivering a carefully calibrated and timed dosage it's instead DOSing some system for all that it's worth. These devices are surely never tested under "extreme load" scenarios because they're not intended to be used that way.
Since hitting 60 Ive noticed increasing aphasia (not finding the right word) so the Internet of Unnamed Objects is just dandy with me. ... grass thing.
Now get off my
That would be pretty funny in a horrible sort of way.
1337 h4x0r: 3y3 r0x0r j0000 b17ch h4x h4x DDoS mmk4y
patient: urghghghghhh *flatlines*
It's like evil compounding evil, unintentionally. Truly someone will be able to h4x you to death without even really caring about how or why it happened. Would make a decent updated Monty Python's Flying Circus-type skit.
New career opportunity -- managed care IoT wrangler.
So Humans are directed by the machines, and we can hack the machine. Hence we can hack humans.
Humans can perform telephone DDoS. And moreover, they can be hacked as citizen: Now go to the polling both and vote for candidate X (replace X by the current political bogeyman)
What people suffering from Dementia really need is the option to decide to leave this world on their own terms while the disease still hasn't robbed them of the ability to make those type of decisions
Is there an Internet Thing for that?
But can we really? Do we expect our old and frail citizens to achieve what we typically can't, namely tame our ill-behaving devices? Think about it. When those wonderful "things" are bored from talking grandpa into taking his medicine they help other people with running a DDoS. And while doing that they conveniently forget what they were supposed to do for grandpa. I for one am not looking forward to all those sad news items about dead bodies in "modern" homes.
This is a great example of how the "Internet of Things" can be beneficial, but I worry that in our current American (and in some cases, global) climate of hyper-capitalist "I'll get mine, get yours, and then lock up the source so nobody else can have it...that's the way to MY perpetual growth!" ideal, such benefits won't be realized.
Consider for instance electronic medical records. EMRs are in theory, a great benefit and both patients and medical professionals were promised the wonders of the age. Instant knowledge about a patient's complete history! All facets of healthcare providers will be able to easily and securely transfer health info upon request! Patient records will be more complete and legible than ever with patients themselves able to be in custody of their own charts without their doctors and hospitals losing anything; plus, physical copying with all its cost on time (and sometimes finances) would be a thing of the past! Prescriptions can be transferred instantly and securely, including special case (ie controlled substances)! Even the Affordable Care Act had a provision that would provide tax breaks and subsidy to encourage doctors and hospitals to switch to EMR so we can start realizing these great benefits. The results however fell significantly short of projection. While there were certainly some other issues (such as poor training on the new EMRs), the main culprit was a lack of mandatory standardization and openness with respects to the EMR software. Each EMR company spawned its own proprietary product (costing tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars or more!) that not only was often incompatible with other EMRs, but often had so many variants, plug-ins, and configuration options that two offices using the same EMR might not actually be compatible. For all these variations these products often were not flexible enough when it counted, so if a practice or hospital wanted to modify something it would range from cumbersome to impossible. Updates also proved a problem despite the fact these companies should have known that frequent updates would be required due to changes in everything from billing parameters and CPT codes to diagnosis ICD-9 (ICD-10, and soon ICD-11 ) codes and prescription databases. The only constant was cost - every little thing was a chance to gouge a little deeper! Today, my nearby hospital has a patchwork setup of EMR modules from 3 vendors, partly or completely incompatible with each other and most of the office practices have similarly incompatible EMRs. Few if any of the benefits of transition arrived as described and many doctors and patients alike had to go through considerable amounts of frustration. Only the EMR software companies and the cottage industry that sprung up around them benefited from this quagmire and they did so heavily, thanks to this problematic implementation of what should have been a good idea.
We already know that the Internet of Things provides a similar divergent path - at its best, it will make for a more informative, convenient and usefully interconnected world, but at its worst it will be a patchwork network of privacy and security vulnerabilities on an as of yet unheard-of scale. Its all well and good to talk about the potential benefits but especially with something like elder care or any other use where peoples' lives and well being may be on the line, it is even more important that the Internet of Things be developer and implemented in the right way - which in some cases means "not at all". Proper implementation hinges upon enforcing strict guidelines of openness and compatibility.
For instance, all IoT must communicate via open standards, ideally using existing open source/spec tools when possible. When not, new standards and protocols will be created that adhere to the underlying ideals of the project (openness, security, power etc..) through a partnership between industry groups, NGOs (IEEE and such), and perhaps certain gov't agencies (like how NIST was involved in ratifying AES as a stan
I may be old, but just like James Bond/Daniel Craig (Casino Royale), I may one day have a chip planted in me. And when I'm picked up wandering the neighborhood, the shelter can wand me and call my family... Who might just leave me for 7-days to be put to sleep.
"Love is a familiar; Love is a devil: there is no evil angel but Love." --William Shakespeare ('Love's Labors Lost')