Tag Archive for: MedMinder

AARP Bulletin Features GrandCare as a New Technology for Aging Parents

Form AARP Bulletin | Sally Abrams

New Technology Could Allow You or Your Parents to Age at Home

Devices give older people the opportunity to avoid or delay the nursing-home decision

Phil D’Eramo used to call his parents four or five times a day to make sure they took their medication. An only child from upstate New York, D’Eramo was worried, especially about his 89-year-old father, who has Alzheimer’s disease. Were Mom and Dad eating often enough? When his father went out for short drives, was he getting home safely? […]

Now he logs onto a website to check their activity, captured via cellular connection, and remotely monitors their medication. He sees the number of times Mom opens the refrigerator, and when Dad goes into the bathroom or heads out the door. The company can alert D’Eramo by text, email, Web or phone if something is out of the ordinary.

“A dazzling array of new technology is giving older people more confidence in their ability to live alone, and it’s helping families avoid the wrenching decision to move an aging parent from his or her home to a nursing facility. “Smart” technology such as sensors, voice activation, GPS, Bluetooth, cellular connectivity via mobile phones, smartphone monitoring apps and sophisticated computers are making aging in place a viable option for an increasing number of people.”

System Comp 2AARP highlights GrandCare Systems as one of these smart technologies:

Who uses it: Gladys Jules lives in Atlanta and has used GrandCare to check on her aunt and mother in South Carolina and to keep them socially connected. Jules’ daughter recently had twins and streams daily photos to her grandmother. Last September, Jules, 62, had colon surgery and now also uses GrandCare daily. She takes biometric readings, organizes her prescriptions and stores her medical information for her kids “just in case.”

What it is: A multipurpose system that tracks daily activity, has medical monitoring (glucose, oxygen, blood pressure, weight) and can display anything: diets, discharge plans, exercises. An interactive touch screen lets Dad watch videos, view family or Facebook photos, listen to music, play games, read the news and video chat with family.

How it works: It uses an Internet connection that communicates with wireless sensors you’ve placed around the house. Caregivers log on to a website to see their loved one’s activity, write them messages and make rules (“Alert me when …”).

Learn more about GrandCare Systems by visiting GrandCare.com.

Other technologies highlighted in the article include MedMinder, Reminder Rosie, Philips Lifeline with AutoAlert, GreatCall 5Star Urgent Response and MobileHelp.

To learn more about aging in place technologies and how they are read the full article from AARP.

Another Great Piece from Savvy Seniors’ Jim Miller

What types of new home technologies can you recommend to help me keep tabs on my elderly mother? She lives alone, about an hour’s drive from me, and I worry about her safety.

— Concerned Daughter

BRADENTON HERALD – Helping an aging parent remain independent and living in their own home has become a little easier in recent years, thanks to a host of new and improved assistive technology products. Here are some top rated options you should know about.

[…]

Monitoring systems

System Comp TRANS HR03-13

GrandCare offers a wide variety of sensors and devices for customers to choose from.

Another more sophisticated technology for keeping tabs on your mom is with a home monitoring system. These systems will let you know whether she is waking up and going to bed on time, eating properly, showering and taking her medicine.

They work through small wireless sensors (not cameras) placed in key locations throughout the home. The sensors will track her movements, learning her daily activity patterns and routines, and will notify you or other family members via text message, email or phone if something out of the ordinary is happening. For instance, if she went to the bathroom and didn’t leave it could indicate a fall or other emergency.

You can also check up on her patterns anytime you want through the system’s password-protected website. And for additional protection, most services offer SOS call buttons as well that can be placed around the house, or worn.

Some good companies that offer these services are BeClose (beclose.com, 866-574-1784), which runs $399 or $499 for the sensors, plus a $69 monthly service fee if paid a year in advance. And GrandCare Systems (grandcare.com, 262-338-6147), which adds a fantastic social component – through a senior-friendly computer – to go along with the activity monitoring. GrandCare leases for $150 to $300 per month.

Medication management

Med Minder

MedMinder provides the only pill dispensers with their own, built-in Cellular connection.

If you want to make sure your mom is keeping up with her medications, there are medication management devices you can now rent, that will dispense her medicine on schedule, provide constant reminders, and even notify you if her medicine is not taken. Two products that offer this are MedMinder (medminder.com, 888-633-6463), which rents for $40 per month, and the Philips Medication Dispensing Service (managemypills.com, 888-632-3261) that costs $75/month.

Jim Miller, a contributor to the NBC Today show and author of “The Savvy Senior” book, can be reached at Savvy Senior, P.O. Box 5443, Norman, OK 73070.
Or visit www.savvysenior.org.

Read more here: http://www.bradenton.com/2013/05/07/4514595/assistive-technologies-that-help.html#storylink=cpy

Home Health Tech Launches Specialty Health Store

First of its kind, new website offers digital solutions for independently living.

Submitted to HomeToys.com on: 02/24/2012, 7:59 am

Home Health Tech by Home Controls has launched a fully-functional retail web store specializing in products that help the growing senior population live independently. The online store is at www.HomeHealthTechStore.com, and orders can also be placed by calling 888-220-7690.

Home Health Tech by Home Controls is the first store of its kind to provide high-tech products targeting the senior market, promoting the philosophy that a bit of technology can provide a safer and healthier environment. The products available at Home Health Tech are ideal for people living independently, their families, caregivers, health partners and care facilities.

“Home Health Tech by Home Controls is now a one-stop shop for a wide variety of simple digital products for our aging Boomer generation,” says Ken Kerr, President of Home Controls, Inc. “There is a great demand for these digital products to help seniors stay in their homes longer and live better and safer lives while doing so.”

Home Health Tech by Home Controls has partnered with some of the nation’s leading manufacturer’s to provide a comprehensive assortment of home health tech systems, covering digital health systems, safety and security, personal health, communication, cognition and more.

Featured product lines include caregiver assistance systems from GrandCare, amplified telephones from ClearSounds and Amplicom, personal emergency response systems (PERS) from Linear and LogicMark, personal health products from A&D Medical, medication management tools from MedFolio, MedReady and MedMinder, cognition tools from Dakim, and communication systems from Presto. Home Health Tech also offers remote controlled doors and windows, automatic lighting, sensor pads, wanderer alerts, flood and fire prevention systems, and much more.

“These products are state-of-the-art and very simple to use, helping those seniors who want to age in their own homes and helping their family and caregivers, too,” Kerr says.

In addition, Home Health Tech by Home Controls offers several programs for integrators and health professionals working in the independent living or aging in place markets. These programs offer special wholesale pricing, extended technical support, customized marketing support, system training, networking and more.

“Many integrators are looking to get into the rapidly growing home health tech market, but don’t know where to go for advice and products to fill the demand,” Kerr says. “Now integrators have a one-stop shop for information, marketing materials, and a wide variety of products aimed at the aging-in-place market.”

GrandCare Systems Featured in NY TIMES!!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/29/garden/29parents.html?scp=2&sq=GrandCare%20Systems&st=cse

Technologies Help Adult Children Monitor Aging Parents

IN the wee hours of July 14, Elizabeth Roach, a 70-year-old widow, got out of bed and went to the living room of her Virginia ranch home. She sat in her favorite chair for 15 minutes, then returned to bed.

She rose again shortly after 6, went to the kitchen, plugged in the coffee pot, showered and took her weight and blood pressure. Throughout the morning, she moved back and forth between the kitchen and the living room. She opened her medicine cabinet at 12:21 and closed it at 12:22. Immediately afterward, she opened the refrigerator door for almost three minutes. At 1:36, she opened the kitchen door and went outside.

All this information — including her exact weight (126 pounds) and blood pressure reading (139/98) — was transmitted via the Internet to her 44-year-old son, Michael Murdock, who reviewed it from his home office in suburban Denver.

All was normal — meaning all was well.

“Right now she’s not home,” Mr. Murdock said. That he deduced because the sensors he had installed throughout his mother’s home told him that the kitchen door — which leads outside — had not been reopened since 1:36, more than an hour earlier. The opening of the medicine cabinet midday confirmed to him that his mother had taken her medicine. And he was satisfied that she had eaten lunch because the refrigerator door was open more than just a few seconds.

In the general scheme of life, parents are the ones who keep tabs on the children. But now, a raft of new technology is making it possible for adult children to monitor to a stunningly precise degree the daily movements and habits of their aging parents.

The purpose is to provide enough supervision to make it possible for elderly people to stay in their homes rather than move to an assisted-living facility or nursing home — a goal almost universally embraced as both emotionally and financially desirable. With that in mind, a vast spectrum of companies, from giants like General Electric to start-ups like iReminder of Westfield, N.J., which has developed a system to notify families if loved ones haven’t taken their medicine, are looking for a piece of the market of families with an aging relative.

Many of the systems are godsends for families. But, as with any parent-child relationship, all loving intentions can be tempered by issues of control, role-reversal, guilt and a little deception — enough loaded stuff to fill a psychology syllabus. For just as the current population of adults in their 30s and 40s have built a reputation for being a generation of hyper-involved, hovering parents to their own children, they now have the tools to micro-manage their aging mothers and fathers as well…


The system Mr. Murdock persuaded his mother to install is called GrandCare, produced by a company of the same name based in West Bend, Wis. It allows families to place movement sensors throughout a house. Information — about when doors were opened, what time a person got into and out of bed, whether there’s been any movement in a room for a certain time period — is sent out via e-mail, text message or voice mail. He said his GrandCare system cost $8,000 to install — about as much as two months at the local assisted-living facility, Mr. Murdock said — plus monthly fees of about $75. The company says that costs vary depending on what features a client chooses.

In addition to giving him peace of mind that his mother is fine, the system helps assuage that midlife sense of guilt. “I have a large amount of guilt,” Mr. Murdock admitted. “I’m really far away. I’m not helping to take care of her, to mow her lawn, to be a good son.”

His mother, Mrs. Roach, was nervous at first when her son brought up the idea of using the system. “I didn’t want to be invaded,” she said. “I didn’t understand the system and was concerned about privacy.” Now that it’s in place, she said, she’s changed her mind: “I was all wrong. I’m not feeling like I’m being watched all day.” And she really enjoys the system’s feature that lets her play games and receive photos and messages from her children and grandchildren. (She never learned to use e-mail.)

Mrs. Roach has no major health issues that require the kind of watching she is getting, and oddly enough, that is the ideal scenario. Elinor Ginzler, senior vice president for livable communities at AARP, said it’s best to discuss using such technology long before a parent’s health has slipped to a point where she might actually need it. “You frame it that way: ‘We’re so happy that things are going so well. We want to make sure to keep it that way. Let’s talk about what we can do to make sure.’ ”

What often follows is pushback. After all, this is not a generation known for its ease with technology…

Adult children who call parents to check up on them have learned to be careful about how they phrase their questions. “I personally don’t make it so that I’m watching,” Mr. Murdock said. “I don’t say, ‘Mom, I was looking and you didn’t do this.’ I say, ‘Mom, are you O.K.? I noticed you didn’t take your medicine.’ It’s a balancing act, but it’s an easy conversation. It’s not like I’m calling every day saying, ‘Did you do this or did you do that?’ ”