GrandCare on CNN

Special Thanks to our long time GrandCare customer, dealer and friend: The Oaks in South Carolina and Peace of Mind Alternatives. Stacey Pierce & James McGee for helping to facilitate and allowing CNN to interview their GrandCare Client. Thank you!

Sensors monitor older people at home
Columbia, South Carolina (CNN) — The sensors know when Charlton Hall Jr. wakes up to go to the bathroom. They know how much time he spends in bed. They watch him do jigsaw puzzles in the den. They tattle when he opens the refrigerator.
Sound like a Big Brother nightmare?
Not for Hall. The 74-year-old finds comfort in monitored living.
“It’s a wonderful system for helping older people to stay independent as long as possible,” he said, sitting in the living room of his 7,500-square-foot house, a sensor watching him from an elaborate bookshelf. “They know where I am — all the time.”
Sensor networks, which made their debut in hospitals and assisted living centers, have been creeping into the homes of some older Americans in recent years.
The systems — which can monitor a host of things, from motion in particular rooms to whether a person has taken his or her medicine — collect information about a person’s daily habits and condition, and then relay that in real-time to doctors or family members.
If Hall opens an exterior door at night, for example, an alert goes out to his doctor, a monitoring company and two of his closest friends, since he doesn’t have family nearby.
“They want to know if I’ve fallen, and where I am,” he said, noting that he’s fallen several times in recent years and also has a chronic heart condition and diabetes.
Hall’s monitoring network, made by a company called GrandCare Systems, features motion-sensors in every room as well as sensors on every exterior door. A sensor beneath the mattress pad on his bed tells health care professionals if he’s sleeping regularly.
All of this connects wirelessly with vital sign monitors, which send his doctor daily reports about his blood-sugar levels, blood pressure and weight. He can see charts about how he’s doing on a touch-screen monitor that sits on a desk in his home office.
This type of set-up may only be the beginning.
University researchers are testing robots that help take care of older people, keep them company — and even give them sponge baths. Meanwhile, some younger people have taken to collecting information on their own, often going to extremes to document exercise routines, caffeine intake and the like and posting the data online.
Jeff Kaye, director of the Oregon Center for Aging & Technology, said this monitored-all-the-time life will become the norm for older people in the United States within five years, and will be common for people of all ages soon after.
His lab has been conducting research on the benefits of monitoring people all the time, and they have early indications that doctors may be able to spot early Alzheimer’s, dementia and indicators a person is susceptible to falls by monitoring their daily lives.
While the technology is basically ready to go now, he said, researchers haven’t had enough time to figure out how these systems will work most effectively. Crunching the data can be challenging, and the number of things we can monitor needs to be increased for these systems to provide more valuable info.
“The temperature you sleep at, the particulate matter in the air, the ambient light your body experiences … drastically can change your physiology, and we are barely aware of it,” he said.
The idea of monitoring older people is catching on slowly, and there are several reasons for this.
Part of the hold-up is a lack of research. While tech researchers and health care experts have a general sense that more monitoring must be a good thing for spotting health trends and preventing accidents, there’s little formal research to prove this.
Companies that make these systems are also scarce.
Only a few boutique companies in the United States sell these types of monitoring systems for home use, experts said in interviews, although Intel and GE are set to announce a partnership such systems in January, GE Healthcare’s Jim Pursley said.
Some complain that the monitoring systems are too expensive for many people.
Hall’s system in Columbia, South Carolina, cost $5,500 to install, he said. Others pay monthly fees for monitoring services, kind of like a cable TV payment model.
Bob Jennings, who lives 45 minutes down the road from Hall in Orangeburg, South Carolina, said he pays $300 to $400 per month for a system to monitor his parents’ home, which is about a mile down the street from his house.
That’s cheaper than a nursing home, and it brings him peace of mind, he said.
There are also ethical issues with monitoring people as they age.
Jennings, 49, said he made a pact with his dad to let him stay in his house — which he’s lived in for more than 40 years — as long as possible. Jennings didn’t feel safe about that arrangement without placing a network of monitors in the home.
Bob Jennings’ dad, Robert Jennings, now 86, didn’t take to the idea kindly.
“I don’t need that damn thing,” Bob Jennings recalls his dad saying.
But if it meant he could stay in his house, he would agree to it.
The younger Jennings said the system has proven useful.
Until recently, Robert Jennings lived in his large house with his wife, who has Alzheimer’s and has since moved to an assisted living center. Before she moved to the center, Bob Jennings worried his mother would become disoriented and wander out of the house. He used a GrandCare network of sensors to track her and notify him if she broke from normal routine.
If she was out of bed for more than 10 minutes in the middle of the night, for example, he would get a call. And if she opened a door to the backyard, where there’s a swimming pool, he would get a call on his mobile phone, work phone and home phone.
One night he got that call, and rushed to the house to find his mother fiddling with a latch that kept her out of the backyard.
“She could have walked right out there and fell in the swimming pool,” he said.
Jennings said his dad has been able to stay in the home at least two years longer than he otherwise would have because of the monitoring system.
But it’s not clear Robert Jennings understands the system.
His son had the sensors installed while his dad was out of the house so that he wouldn’t worry. The 86-year-old users a touch-screen monitor that controls the system from the kitchen mostly to look at photos of his family members. Pictures of granddaughters in cheerleader outfits and his grandson on hunting trips flash across the screen while he eats breakfast.
The AARP supports these monitoring systems as a way for people to “age in place,” but the group says adult children should have serious conversations with their parents about why they’re interested in a monitoring system and the possible benefits.
“Conversations should be taking place early and often,” said Elinor Ginzler, AARP’s senior vice president for livable communities.
Lee Tien, senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a group that advocates for privacy online, said rules need to be developed to ensure the personal data from these monitoring systems is protected.
“When data is being held by a third party, that also means it’s susceptible to being subpoenaed by your insurance company or accessible perhaps by your employer or law enforcement or the IRS,” he said. “Everyone can make up their own idea of who they wouldn’t want to know all the things that the 24-7 record of the movement inside your home — connected with monitoring devices — would tell you.”
Robert Jennings said he wants to do whatever he can to stay in his home.
“It’s where I spent most of my time with my wife and raised my children,” he said. Nearly every inch of available wall space in the home is covered with portraits of family members and pets.
Hall is a rare case in that he chose to install a system to monitor himself. Without it, he said, he would have to leave his home, which is stuffed full of beloved items he’s collected over the years — from porcelain birds to Chinese furniture and nude statues.
A tiny dog named Precious tails him everywhere he goes in the house.
But Hall likes knowing someone else is watching, too.
“It is the most secure feeling,” he said.

Direct link to CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/innovation/11/19/sensors.aging/index.html?hpt=Sbin

11-18-10 Thursday Webinar: Home Technology Integrators: Understanding the Channel

GrandCare Systems 11-18-10 Webinar
We meet here: http://my.dimdim.com/grandcare

on Thursday November 18th, 2pm EDT (1p CT).

Topic: Julie Jacobson from CE Pro speaks
Home Technology Integrators: Understanding the Channel

More than 15,000 companies in the U.S. install integrated technologies for the home, offering customized audio, video and automation solutions for a wide variety of clientele – music lovers, movie mavens, the security and energy conscious, busy families, home-office workers, frequent travelers and now more than ever seniors who are aging in place.

These CE (custom electronics) Pros can be great allies in bringing technology into the lives of the elderly, their caretakers and their loved ones. In fact, no other class of professional can serve the unique needs of the aging population with technology for home security, personal safety, communications, entertainment, comfort and convenience. How can technology vendors work with CE Pros? This brief session will provide an overview of the channel, including the size of the market, the characteristics of CE Pro companies, distribution channels, purchasing habits, perceptions of home health technology, and what it will take to make them successful in the seniors market.

Our Speaker:
Julie Jacobson co-founded EH Publishing in 1994, and since then has been an editor for the consumer magazine Electronic House and the trade publication CE Pro. Both publications cover integrated home technologies including automation, audio, video, security, energy management, telecommunications and lighting controls. The daughter of a gerontologist, Julie has been covering technology for seniors and the disabled since the early days of EH. She lives in Stillwater, MN. Contact: juliejacobson@comcast.net, @juliejacobson on Twitter.

Are you planning to Attend the PRE CES AgeTek workshop?

I wanted to invite you to the Pre-CES Silvers Workshop that is being put on by the Smart Silvers people on January 5, 2011 from 1:00 to 4:00. If you are attending CES in Las Vegas, it would be a shame to miss this workshop that is shaping up with a highly interesting agenda.

I know your time is precious, that is why the format for the workshop is only four hours the day before CES starts. The AgeTek board of directors gave guidance to Smart Silvers to steer the agenda towards where we thought there would be the most interest from our members. Here’s how the four hours shape up:

EmCee: Susan Ayers Walker
1:00 – 2:00 Branding Your Products to the Boomer/Senior Consumer – Create the Plan
(speakers so far: Lori Bitter of Continuum Crew, Mary Furlong of MFA Associates)
2:00 – 3:00 Channel Roulette: View from inside the Retail, Catalog or VAR Channels
(speakers so far: Rick Rommel, VP at Best Buy, Michele Ahlman of Clearsounds, Bud Myers of Senior Circuits)
3:00 – 4:00 You know Social Media is Hot… But How do you Make it Pay off?
(speakers so far: Jill Gilbert of Digital Health, Laura Mitchell of Grandcare)
4:00 – 5:00 Creating Partnerships and Strategic Alliances
(speakers so far: Madeline Pantalone of Greatcall, Gary Arlen of Arlen Communications, Liddy Manson of BeClose, John Mills of eCare Diary)

Best of all, AgeTek members get a 50% discount down to $99.00. The money goes to the running of the event through the Silvers Summit organization, none of it goes to AgeTek. The Alliance is a sponsor of this event, though, and we have contributed a small amount to support it. We also are piggyback a networking event and our annual AgeTek meeting in the same venue afterwards from 5:30 to 8:30 P.M. and you won’t want to miss that.

Lastly, could you please R.S.V.P. to agetek@me.com and let us know if you intend to register for the pre-CES Workshop? It’s important for planning to know how many attendees to plan for.

TO REGISTER for the workshop, please visit: http://bit.ly/silversworkshop

Discovery Channel Future Family Life in

GrandCare was featured in the Discovery Channel Future Family Life in the Digital Age – GrandCare featured. Watch here: http://ow.ly/39h52

Special thanks to Michael Murdock & Family, Discovery Channel and AARP for making this happen!

The Discovery Channel

Please tune in TOMORROW to see the GrandCare System LIVE on the DISCOVERY CHANNEL: “Future Family: Life in the Digital Age” (about baby boomers and new technology) is scheduled to air on the Discovery Channel this Saturday, November 13th at 8 am EST. It is scheduled to repeat in that time slot the two weekends following.

You can view when it airs here

11-11-10 GC Webinar: Mary Furlong Speaks – new revenue streams

GrandCare Systems 11-11-10 Webinar
We meet here: http://my.dimdim.com/grandcare
Topic: Mary Furlong Speaks
New Revenue Streams
As aging in place technology companies go to market with products and services it is important to form partnerships with enterprises that have both distribution and trust with the end user. Given the current economic climate and conditions for nonprofits at the national, state, and local level there is a new interest and sense of agility about forming partnerships with companies that have great products, shared values, and are building solutions to endure.

Mary Furlong, Ed.D., MFA’s president and CEO, is a leading authority on the baby boom generation as it moves toward and beyond age 50. She has guided the offline and online 45+ market strategies of leading corporations and nonprofit organizations for more than 20 years, and her list of clients includes AARP, J & J, Microsoft, First Republic Bank, First STREET, Taheima, and Wellcore. Mary founded MFA in 2003 to help socially-and consumer-conscious companies understand the real needs of this growing market.

In addition, Mary is the Dean’s Executive Professor of Entrepreneurship at Santa Clara University’s Leavey School of Business.

Mary is the author of the book Turning Silver into Gold: How to Profit in the New Boomer Marketplace, which was published in February 2007 by Financial Times Press. She also co-authored the book Grown-Up’s Guide to Computing, published by Microsoft Press in 1999.

Majority of Americans Agree ‘There’s No Place Like Home’ for Care of Elderly Family Members

I wanted to post this article I ran across today, because it’s so spot on with our values and mission. Since 2006, the staff at GrandCare has been promoting our ADL, Wellness, Communication & Cognition technology to help loved ones to remain independent, safer, healthier, more free, connected to family, and at ease will at home. The family members and care partners have “peace of mind” knowing that all is well with a loved one and that if anything seems amiss (excessive weight gain, med noncompliance, failure to get out of bed, etc), they can specify a phone call, email or text. GrandCare Systems is the IDEAL partner technology and caregiver tool for a home health company like Amedisys.

Nov. 9, 2010, 8:00 a.m. EST
Majority of Americans Agree ‘There’s No Place Like Home’ for Care of Elderly Family Members

New Amedisys poll shows that 3 out of 4 Americans would choose home health care for their loved ones’ medical needs over nursing homes and other care facilities

BATON ROUGE, La., Nov. 9, 2010 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — When faced with managing the care of an aging or ill family member, a new survey shows that Americans want to keep their loved ones close to home. According to a national telephone poll conducted by Harris Interactive for Amedisys, a leading provider of home care and hospice services (AMED 27.90, +0.22, +0.79%) , 74 percent of Americans would prefer having a terminally ill family member taken care of at home with the care of a trained health aide, rather than in a traditional nursing home or other care facility. In comparison, only 10 percent would prefer a nursing home and six percent would choose an outpatient center. The poll also found that when considering care for an elderly family member recuperating from surgery, half (51 percent) would prefer home health care over any other facility.

The survey was conducted as part of Amedisys’ Annual Home Care Matters Initiative around National Home Care and Hospice Month, a national month of recognition across the industry, which takes place each November.

The poll results show that Americans have a preference for home care for themselves, as well. If faced with chronic medical care, terminal illness or surgery recuperation, the overwhelming majority of Americans would prefer home health care versus off-site care at a nursing home, rehabilitation or outpatient center. The poll found that 65 percent of respondents would prefer home health care for themselves while recuperating from surgery, while 75 percent would prefer it for themselves if they were in the final stage of a terminal illness.

Home health care is identified as a valuable resource for families

Survey respondents said they are already providing some sort of care for their loved ones: one-in-five poll respondents (19 percent) reported that they are coordinating or assisting with home care for a spouse or elderly family member, and according to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 43 percent of those providing care are 50 years of age or older, and 61 percent of family caregivers are women.

According to the AARP Public Policy Institute, the annual economic value of these types of unpaid care giving activities is an astounding $354 billion.

“Home health care assists these familial caregivers in being more effective in managing a loved one’s illness which provides a significant cost and family stress relief benefit,” says Michael Fleming, MD, Chief Medical Officer of Amedisys. “The home health industry can help produce better health outcomes for patients if more people, doctors included, were better educated about health care at home options.”

And, the number of family members caring for sick loved ones is expected to grow: more than one-third (34 percent) of respondents to the Harris poll anticipate that they will have to do so within the next five years. Not surprisingly, respondents felt that home health care is a critical part of the continuum of care. Eighty-eight percent of those polled felt that home health care could be considered a valuable resource for themselves, their family members and future generations.

Home care plays a critical role in managing the age tsunami

According to 2008 figures, approximately 7.6 million Americans receive care at home for a variety of conditions. Recent studies show that the average home care patient has changed considerably during the past few years, with an increase in patients requiring major rehabilitation needs. In fact, a 2007 report from the Centers for Disease Control showed that 80 percent of older adults had at least one chronic condition and two-thirds of all health care costs are spent on chronic disease management. With the graying of the American population – and the clear preference for care at home – the demand for home care and hospice is only expected to grow.

“As the population ages, home health and hospice care is going to become increasingly important as an alternative to hospital or nursing home care. And it’s a service that Americans clearly want,” said Amedisys Chief Executive Officer William Borne. “Over the next ten years, home health care has the potential to save $31 billion dollars in Medicare costs. As we progress into the role of chronic care management, the home health and hospice industry has an important role to play in the future of health care.”

Other survey findings:

Currently, 25 percent of those polled provide some type of financial support to an elderly family member, and 38 percent anticipate having to do so within the next five years.

Regionally, those in the South (43 percent), the West (44 percent), and Northeast (38 percent) are more likely than those in the Midwest (26 percent) to provide financial support within the next five years.

Half (49 percent) of Americans would be angry and an additional one-third (33 percent) would be disappointed if home health care was not an available care option to them.

The Harris Poll National Quorum(R) was conducted by telephone within the United States between August 4 -8, 2010 among 1,006 adults (aged 18 and over). Figures for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, region, number of adults in the household, and number of phone lines in the household were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population.

GrandCare Featured on Las Vegas Morning Blend

Congrats to GrandCare Las Vegas dealer: Fusion Care for their wonderful feature on the Las Vegas Morning Blend this morning!!

http://www.vegasmorningblend.com/videos/106630598.html

Technology A Blessing, A Curse For Remote Island by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Technology A Blessing, A Curse For Remote Island
by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
by Martha Irvine, Associated Press national writer.

BEAVER ISLAND, Mich. November 8, 2010, 12:14 pm ET
Muggs Bass doesn’t own a computer. She’s pretty much dead set against e-mail. Anyone who calls her home on Michigan’s remote Beaver Island should be prepared for a busy signal, if she’s on her land-line phone. She has no cell.

“When you don’t have it, you don’t miss it. That’s what I say,” says the spunky 70-year-old grandmother, who’s as comfortable telling jokes at the local pub as she is attending Mass each morning.

Technology isn’t really her thing. So, it’s a small miracle when Bass drives, once a month, to her island’s rural health center to sit down in front of a wide-screen television. There, she and a handful of other islanders connect by video conference with a similar group in Charlevoix, Mich., a two-hour ferry ride to the south and east.

They chat. They laugh. They cry together.

All of them have, or have had, cancer, Bass included. Hers started with a lump in her breast and has since metastasized to her bones, making her cancer treatable, but incurable, her doctors tell her.

Her own grandmother died of the same disease and went off the island for occasional treatments, as Bass does every few weeks. But that grandmother could hardly have imagined a day when islanders talked openly about their cancer, face-to-face with people in a support group miles away.

It’s just one of many ways technology is making this rugged place less remote than it once was and, some would say, more livable for more people.

It also gives islanders hope for new jobs that could attract residents to this island in northern Lake Michigan where the year-round population is about 650 people, give or take a few dozen.

“In the last few years, technology has sprung,” says Joe Moore, a retired teacher who’s known as one of the geeks on the island who helps keep computers running.

Not that the change has come quickly, or that technology always works perfectly.

That’s just how it is on an island where a popular bumper sticker reads “Slow Down! This Ain’t The Mainland.” It’s aimed at anyone who’s in too big a hurry, including lead-footed tourists who kick up dust on the many dirt roads or who panic when cell phone service drops.

That’s life on wired — or at least, semi-wired — Beaver Island… (continued)

OUR THOUGHTS:

I think this is a Great article – I love hearing positive tech success stories & how it’s used to connect with loved ones as well as communicate with remote care providers. This is the way technology should be used. Certainly, like with anything, it can be over-used and abused. Thinking about the island visitors who freak when cell reception goes dead finds me feeling a bit sheepish – perhaps we ALL could use a little more of the Beaver Island attitude. What really is important is that with tech today, all age groups can CONNECT & benefit! Muggs discusses that she doesn’t really care to use tech & while that may partly be true (no cell or PC), she really IS using technology every day. Using web chat (via skype) an I would guess that much of her medical care utilizes cutting-edge tech as well. At GrandCare Systems, we do the same thing. Smarthome Tech, Activity of Daily Living monitoring, Telehealth, Remote Socialization Tech to individuals who want to stay independent & connected to family. Similarly, GrandCare allows a loved one to Skype with ONE touch on the interactive touchpad. The loved one doesn’t have to know anything about computers to use it – perfect for beaver island! Thanks again! Laura Mitchell, GrandCare Systems
www.grandcare.com

11-4-10 Webinar: E-Learning for Caregivers, Dr. Marion speaks

WHEN: Thursday November 4th, 2pm EDT (1p CT).
WHERE: http://my.dimdim.com/grandcare
WHAT: E-Learning for Caregivers, Dr. Marion speaks
WHY: With the senior generation living longer than ever before, Dr. Marion believes we are on the verge of an “elder care tsunami.” Her proven advice and support can help caregivers address the challenges they face as they care for their aging parents, spouses and loved ones.
Topic Description: Dr. Marion is about to release her E-Learning Tool for non professional caregivers. It is a program in partnership with Adobe featuring Captivate 3 technology. It is a 5 hour online class that walks Caregivers through the basics of caregiving from how to properly use a wheelchair to how to make the home safe. They are interested in embedding various products and services within the tool and offering them for sale under an affiliate model through the class.

About Dr. Marion:
A recognized visionary and thought leader in the elder field, Dr. Marion (Marion Somers, Ph.D) has over After decades of working directly with seniors and their caregivers, Dr. Marion launched a public effort to provide practical tools, solutions, and advice to those struggling to care for our aging population. She has helped millions of Americans through her book, “Elder Care Made Easier: Doctor Marion’s 10 Steps to Help You Care for an Aging Loved One,” and her web site, www.drmarion.org , speaking tours, syndicated column, national media appearances, and more.

Upcoming Events:
NAHB Webinar – Nov 17 (Laura M from GrandCare speaks) for info: nahb.org

CES (PRE CES WORKSHOP & ANNUAL AGETEK MEETING) – You don’t want to miss this!
ou are Invited to register for an exciting pre‐CES Workshop:
The Silver Tsunami’ is Coming: Is Your Company Ready?
Wednesday Afternoon ‐‐ January 5, 2011, Las Vegas
AgeTek member companies: $99, non‐members $149 suminfo@silverssummit.com
http://silverssummit.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=183&Itemid=71

NAPGCM- – May 12-15, 2011 | Sheraton New Orleans Hotel | New Orleans, LA
AgeTek Discounts apply: http://www.caremanager.org/calendar.cfm