http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6GFXVHVHsw
Stay in touch with a loved one in the hospital, rehabilitation or hospice care. Find out how one woman and her entire family stayed in touch with her mother (in rehab) – even though they all live across the world from one another.
Lifestyle … Technology
High Tech and High Touch: Eldercare in the XXI Century
Doris Bersing, PhD
President and Co-Founder, Living Well – Assisted Living at Home
89% of Americans do not want to leave their homes when they age. Most of these people will be live alone and receive support from a variety of health and community-based providers, family caregivers.
How will the long-term care system provide care to a growing number of seniors living in increasingly scattered locations? And more importantly, how can that system continue to provide quality care in the face of workforce shortages, rising care costs and decreasing resources? Technology has the potential to play a critical role in launching a new model of geriatric care that allows older people to live independently for as long as possible, supports family caregivers in the important work they do and gives health care providers the tools they need to deliver high-quality care at a reasonable cost.
The mix of caring people, technology, and expertise in gerontology is the key to being able to keep people living and aging within their own homes regardless of whether they are healthy and engaged or dealing with chronic physical illness or dementia.
The High Tech Element of the Equation: Technology Helps Seniors Live Independently
In March of 2008, the Center for Aging Services Technologies released a useful report on the state of technology in aging services. Three groupings of technologies are cited: health and wellness technologies, safety technologies, and social connectedness technologies.
Recently showcased at the Silver Summit at the CES in Las Vegas, there are many exciting technologies being developed to help seniors to stay independent and aging in place . Some of them are:
* Home Monitoring Systems – connect monitoring devices, deploying in ASP model with web interface including: emergency response, fall detection, passive motion monitoring (for persons with Dementia/wander risks), bed monitoring (for fall risks and incontinence). Intel, GE, and Grand Care are two of the providers at the fore- front of these technologies
* Tele-medicine Devices: Blood pressure, weight scale, pulse oximeter, all blue-tooth devices connected to a main platform that communicates information to the caregivers or medical centers. These can be combined with the home monitoring technologies
* GPS Shoes designing footwear with a built-in GPS device that could help track down “wandering” seniors suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. This will provide the location of the individual wearing the shoes anywhere on the planet and provide a virtual fence around the elder, enabling them to walk to familiar places but alerting others if they veer off track.
* Medication Monitoring Systems that range from InRange’s EMMA device to the “smart” pill dispensers that work with sensors to alert them to missed dosages and give reminders of the appropriate time to take their medications.
* Walking aids like walkers that can steer away from obstacles and be retrieved by remote control or a cane that can detect warning signs when a person is in danger of falling
* Intelligent phones helping people with memory problems to remember who called last time or the name and relationship of the person calling
* Robotic Nurses developed to help nurses, home health workers and caregivers lift people who cannot walk or help older folks with other activities. A prototype is developed by Vecna Technologies of College Park, MD, with funding from the U.S. military
…
Date: Thursday Jan 28 2010
Time: 2pm EST/1p CST/ 12n MST/ 11a PST
Where: www.dimdim.com meeting room: grandcare
Dial In Information listed on the webinar
Speaker Name: Mike Dempsey
Position: Founder and CEO
Company: Independence Labs
Personal Bio: Mike Dempsey has over 40 patents for medical devices and has developed products or systems that have treated over 20 million patients. Independence Labs is a company whose mission is to help elders live in their own homes independent and safely for as long as possible. Mike also received a citation from the FDA Commissioner for “exceptional initiative and leadership to protect the public health.” He has a BSEE from The University of Michigan.
Topic: Overview of a new Passive Fall Detection System
We will review a system which can detect if people have fallen down but does not require them to wear anything, push any buttons or take any action.
Please join us! These web calls are open to anyone and everyone in the aging and/or technology industry! The purpose is to educate each other, learn and grow as an industry. Remember, the aging tsunami will float all boats!
Thanks,
Laura Mitchell
Your Aging and Technology Call Host
EVERY THURSDAY at 1pm CST
Go to: www.dimdim.com mtg room: grandcare
Looking for a caregiver that never forgets anything, is always in a good mood, and NEVER judges?
There are various models of the GrandCare System to choose from. Ranging from independent home use, to nursing/in-home care staff member use to group homes to hospice/hospice care.
1. A mobile staff tablet to take to multiple resident’s homes/rooms so you can wirelessly record & assess bp, weight, pulse ox, glucose levels as well as record care notes about each resident. This can be accessed remotely by specified care-partners/family members.
2. A multi-resident wellness kiosk for residents to visit and take their vitals with the BP Device, Weight Scale, Glucometer or Pulse Oxygen. These vitals are automatically and wirelessly recorded to the system with allowances for the residents & staff members to jot down carenotes about the resident.
3. Community Room Entertainment Kiosk: Multiple Residents can also use the touchscreen system to play card games, see personal pictures, do trivia, receive incoming communications from family, see facility calendar events, view dining room menu options and more.
4. Multi-resident monitoring system. For multiple resident rooms or group homes. Monitors each resident’s door openings, bed, general motion and potential wellness information. One central TV can display communications, pictures, trivia, etc.
5. Individual (in the home model). There are two options for the in-the-home model. The interactive or passive model. Both will be placed into the independent home/residence and allows for family/care-partners to assess wellness information and be assured that all is well (got out of bed, accessed meds, accessed fridge, normal activity patterns, normal door activity, etc.). Care-partners can customize the GrandCare plan and determine which sensors are necessary for each individual installation. Sensors can EASILY be added or removed at ANY time, no wiring necessary.
A. Passive Model – allows family to send personalized pictures, messages, emails, reminders, family videos, etc to a dedicated TV monitor in the home. Resident needs ZERO technical know-how to use this. They simply watch the TV and the incoming communications.
B. Interactive “On-Demand” Model – allows family to send personalized pictures, messages, emails, reminders, family videos, etc to the easy-to-use, atm-like interactive touchmonitor in the home. The resident simply presses the buttons (pictures, messages, calendar, video, etc.) and chooses what they want to see and when!
6. Hospice/Hospital Model. A simple communication device goes into the room of the resident and plugs into any TV. Family and friends of the resident can go online to the GrandCare website and easily send “i love you” notes, messages, emails, family photos, inspirational words, calendar events and more. The system can also display spiritual offerings, trivia, weather reports, news headlines, nostalgia, stock photos, etc. The resident ONLY has to watch as new communications come in!!!
HOW IT WORKS:
The smart GrandCare System talks quietly and wirelessly with the chosen activity & telehealth sensors. Options range from motion, inside temperature, door, call-me buttons, bed/chair, caller-id on TV, blood pressure, weight, glucometer, pulse oxygen, etc.
Caregivers can log into our secured website from any remote location and check the sensor activity. They can also set up automated alerts. For example, they might want to receive an email if medications were not accessed and a phone call if there is a significant weight gain in a short period of time. Alerts are easy to set-up and can be customized to reflect ANYTHING you need to know. Of course, we walk you through all of this to ensure success!
There is a social/connectivity aspect to GrandCare, which separates us from other remote monitoring systems. It’s called the Communication Station. Caregivers and Family can go to our website and easily send pictures, messages, emails, reminders, calendar appointments, videos, music and more right to a dedicated TV monitor or to an interactive touchscreen. The loved one can also play card games, trivia, see news/weather reports and more using an easy-to-use ATM-like TOUCHSCREEN.
An Excerpt from AgeWise Living Newsletter!
As long term care needs increase and families want to keep their loved ones at home, hiring home health aides often becomes necessary. As you can see from this picture (on a bench in Central Park), often the relationship between the aide and the elderly loved one is a long and devoted one. But in today’s economy, having a private aide for the rest of the elderly loved one’s life isn’t always an option and paying an aide, if not done correctly, can cause Medicaid ineligibility years later, after funds run out. Consider the following very common scenario.
Jane hires a home health aide at $700 per week cash, or $3000 per month. She keeps the aide 3 years until her funds run out and now needs round the clock care. A nursing home becomes the only option.
She applies for Medicaid but is told, “Sorry, you’re not eligible for 15 months. You’ll have to private pay until then.” Of course, Jane has no more money. She’ll have to come up with the funds some other way, perhaps from family members. But at $9000 per month or more that may not be possible. How did Jane get into this mess? Because Medicaid treated her payments to the aide ($108,000) as transfers subject to a penalty.
Qualifying for Medicaid requires spending down assets below $2000. Transferring assets may cause Medicaid ineligibility if you do not receive something of equal value back. Medicaid calls this a “penalty”. However, and this is key, you must prove to Medicaid that assets transferred are not subject to a penalty.
If you pay the aide cash (or by check) and don’t keep proper records Medicaid will assess a penalty. The penalty is calculated by dividing the transferred amount by the average cost of nursing home care. When one applies for Medicaid there is now a 5 year look-back period, meaning Medicaid will look back 5 years from the date of the application to find these transfers. They will add together all the transfers made during that time. The penalty will begin when all other assets have been spent down and the individual enters a nursing home and applies for Medicaid.
Of course, that is exactly the time when you have no more money. The State presumes you gifted the money and so will tell you to get it back, use it and then, after it’s gone to come back and they will pay for your care. But, you didn’t gift the money so you can’t get it back.
So, how can you avoid Jane’s problem? By keeping records to prove the payments were not gifts and not paying cash which is difficult to trace. It is also a good idea to generate detailed invoices of the services which you purchased. Another, perhaps better, solution is to hire a home health agency that will supply the aide. It will cost more than hiring an aide directly but your contract with the agency will insure that Medicaid can never challenge the payments as gifts. And, in the long run it may cost you less because you won’t be stuck with a Medicaid penalty.
For the past 14 years Yale Hauptman has devoted his time exclusively to the practice of elder and disability law with his wife and law partner in his firm, Hauptman & Hauptman. He is a frequent author and lecturer on elder law topics and also is the host of Elder Law Today Podcast, an audio podcast in the format of a radio show, that addresses topical elder law issues (which can be found at www.elderlawtodaypodcast.com). Yale’s law firm website is http://www.hauptmanlaw.com.
Please join the aging & tech industry tomorrow for our weekly aging/technology webinar.
Who: Julie Sipchen, Safety Services Product Manager for the Alzheimer’s Association National Office
What: The Alzheimer’s Association is committed to educating families about how to keep people with Alzheimer’s safe, active and independent in the community for as long as possible. Alzheimer’s Association Comfort Zone™ powered by Omnilink, is an exciting step forward in Alzheimer’s safety choices.
When: (EVERY THURS)
Jan 20, 2pm EST/1p CST/12n MST/11a PST
Where: GO ONLINE to: www.dimdim.com
Click “Join Meeting” enter Meeting Room: GrandCare
You should be able to hear through your computer speakers. If you’d like to participate in the conversation, please mute your computer speakers and dial-in to the number listed at the top of the webinar screen.
Bio: Julie Sipchen is the Safety Services Product Manager for the Alzheimer’s Association National Office. As part of the Business Development team, Julie manages the MedicAlert + Alzheimer’s Association Safe Return program, Comfort Zone and other safety related programs and services. She fields inquiries from companies interested in working with the Association as well as seeks out new opportunities to bring innovative and accessible safety options to people with Alzheimer’s and related dementia and their families.
Why: These webinars are open to ALL and hosted every week to educate, learn from each other, network with each other and have a good time! Remember, THE UPCOMING AGING TSUNAMI will float all boats! Let’s join together and MAKE A SPLASH in the aging and technology industry!!!
Each call is recorded! To ensure good call quality, please mute your phone when not speaking (*6 can automatically mute/unmute your phone) & mute computer speakers if you dial-in.
All are welcome to join us!!!
Your Aging&Technology Call Host,
Laura H. Mitchell
GrandCare Systems
info@grandcare.com
www.grandcare.com
GrandCare Systems is a communication, cognition, wellness assessment & activity monitoring system that allows individuals to stay safe, happy, healthy & independent at home!
Ever wonder why the Burger Kings always move across the street from McDonalds? Or the hair salons comprise one whole corner of town? It’s the concept of co-ompetition. The reason we have malls. Because once the Burger King moves across the street from McDonalds, both restaurants do better.
Here’s a prime example of two competitors working together from a logistics standpoint: Nestle and Mars have been sharing trucks to deliver combined loads of chocolate. In just 11 weeks, over 60 loads were combined with approximately 7,500 miles of duplicate truck journeys eliminated.
This same concept can be used across the industry, including in the aging and technology industry.
In fact, I feel like even more-so in this industry, where SO much education is required. Consumers don’t not only not know what the product is, they also need to understand why they need it. The trick is, we’re not replacing anything concrete, it’s something new. Like when the Internet first came about to consumers in the ’90s and business people needed to be convinced that the Internet was probably a good idea and conceive of how they were going to use it to better their businesses and make life easier for their employees.
We have decided to start up our own aging & technology industry consortium. No official name yet, but it’s going to be an organization where we all join (it’ll be extremely cost-effective to join) and combine efforts. Together we can target big goals (large marketing/advertising campaigns, lobbying for remibursement, educating the market as a whole on the use of technology for our aging population, research & focus groups, business plan implementation for LTC communities, etc.
This idea was born a few months back on one of our weekly aging & technology conference calls. The topic that week was co-ompetition and was being led by Presto! CEO, Peter Radsliff. He spoke about the concept of all of us working together and something clicked with everyone on that call. Everyone got very excited and enthusiastic. A real concept had been born! After that call, we continued to think through this idea. I started mulling the idea with Michael Sarfatti from Smart Silvers (who had also been on the call). He told Susan Ayers Walker (founder of Smart Silvers) and it’s history from there. Susan set up a time and place for all of us to meet within the exhibit floor at CES. About 15 of us met, spoke, shared our visions & passions and started running from there.
Please consider joining our effort & reaping the benefits!!! For more information, please contact me: info@grandcare.com
In support of co-ompetition, we are hosting a technology and aging pavilion at EHX (Electronic House Expo) in March This is open to any and every vendor (and dealer to attend) in the aging and tech industry!!! We are still looking to find other vendors to fill the pavilion so we can make a big splash. Included in each kiosk within the pavilion will be a presentation area along with presentation time and some educational tracks/panels for dealers.
Thanks and remember, The Aging Tsunami Will Float All Boats!!!!
Wow – what a weekend! Well, CES 2010 has come and gone and left us all a little worse for the wear, but excited and full of possibilities and new ideas! GrandCare was honored to be one of the technologies displayed in the digital health techzone.
I did mean to provide more updates along the way, but it was so crazy busy that I never got the chance! So here goes:
We got there and besides a bit of a mix-up about where our booth was (they moved us at the last minute, sorry to all those that went out of their way to find us) 🙂 Everything was swell.
The first thing we did was sign on to the aging and technology conference call – LIVE FROM CES! It was fantastic. Over 30 participants joined us as we interviewed different vendors and a few show participants!
So, I am still needing to convert the recording to an mp3, because the webinar recording didn’t turn out! It was too loud and we kept losing Internet Connection.
There were many different home health technologies presented in the digital Health zone, including GrandCare Systems (Communication, Cognition, ADL Monitoring, Wellness Assessment), Dakim (Socialization/Brain Fitness), Presto (Socialization – Emails printed out automatically for a senior), Wellcore (wearable fall device/PERS), zeo (sleep sensor that can help you to sleep better), myine (takes the commercials out of Internet radio), mygait (computers made easy for seniors) and so much more!!!
The problem was that our digital summit was moved before the show started, so we weren’t as enclosed as we were last year. Last year, it was apparent where all of the home health technologies were, because we were all together! We were kind of far away from some of them (Wellcore was on the other side around the corner from us). We had a sewing system across the aisle from us and as cool as the technology was, it hardly had anything to do with Digital Home Health Technology.
The traffic was wonderful, but the press coming around was pretty light. I know we probably could have done more to get press to do interviews with us (well, for one, we could have paid to have our press kit and such given out to press), but it would be nice to see the press take a more active interest in aging technology.
It’s the big elephant in the room, unfortunately – not quite as glamorous as the HD TVs and surround sound systems in CES. This is an exciting show!! I feel like my 3 year old would be in kiddie-heaven, as were many of the attendees!
One GREAT thing that came out of CES this year? We have formed a new consortium for all of the companies just like GrandCare Systems that want to get together, join forces, use the momentum and combine it to EDUCATE and make the market aware of what we are doing! It’s exciting and it’s BRILLIANT! This is an idea that came from one of our aging and technology industry calls. Remember, these calls are every Thursday at 2pm EST and OPEN TO ALL! Join us at www.dimdim.com meeting room: grandcare.
The hosts are GrandCare, but the topics are EVERYTHING related to aging, wellness and technology! This week, it’s Jack York speaking from It’s Never Too Late. It’s always a great conversation with wonderful people from all around the industry. This call spurred an idea about 2 months ago from Presto founder, Pete Radsliff on the idea of co-ompetition. Why can’t we all just find a way to work together?
The idea of a mall or a burger king moving across the street from mcdonald’s and both do better. The idea that the aging tsunami will certainly float ALL boats!
So, there you have it! We have formed a consortium and we WILL grow into a power! We will grow into a force where we can advertise nationally, educate the market, educate doctors, educate policy makers & slowly gain access TOGETHER into an industry that no one of us can do easily alone!
Contact info@grandcare.com for more information on this consortium and how to join! OR join us any week on our aging/technology conference calls!!!! To sign up for notifications for these weekly calls, register here: http://dealerwww.grandcare.com
Great show – great people – great innovation! 2010 is going to be a great year!!!
The GC TEAM
Video Submited by GrandCare Dealer Roland Graham HD Homes: http://www.hdhomes.tv/cea.htm?ee_mediahash=d3b5fcd2b286f2d60ec2df07a4edb6f1
