~~~~~~ Senior Solutions ~~~~~~
The Future is Now
By Jane Ogilvie
It is my opinion that Assisted Living Facilities and Retirement Communities will become unnecessary and “passé” over the next 20 years. There is currently a wave of research and development focused on how to keep the elderly at home safely, which is where they’d prefer to be in most cases anyway. Technology will change the way Baby Boomers maintain themselves as they age and metamorphose into seniors. “Aging in Place” will live up to its’ fullest definition instead of being the equivalent of a sound bite as it is today.
Assisted Living Facilities are costly whether you have an ample income or are of lesser means. Why pay a few thousand dollars a month for a “suite” or just a room if you can stay home? Who wants to have to “downsize” which basically means getting rid of things you’ve been living with for years. Who wants to go through all of that if it’s not necessary? Why move if you can get the care you need at home and it costs less?
Soon we will be able to see our doctor or his nurse through a computer screen. Our vital signs (blood pressure, pulse, respirations, and temperature) will easily be transmitted from where we sit, to the doctor’s office. If you are diabetic, your glucometer results will be transmitted directly from the testing unit to the office where they will be recorded daily. They’ll notice abnormal patterns ahead of time and be better able to help you control your medication.
Without having to get into the car, we’ll be able to show our rashes, suspicious lumps and bumps, cuts, bruises and infected areas. If we’ve had surgery, we can show how the areas are healing. Medical staff will be able to tell if we’re having trouble with our speech, with our hearing, and with our comprehension. We will be able to run an EKG at home and feed those results to the cardiologist. A doctor will be able to write a new prescription if needed, and send it directly to your pharmacist through the computer. This will save us all a lot of trips to the doctor’s office.
The new technology will be able to check reports which will indicate if we’ve not gotten up out of bed, how many times we’ve had to go to the bathroom during the night, if we’ve been to the kitchen during the day, or if we’ve fallen. Sensors placed around our houses will detect changes in temperatures in the house, which could indicate either we’ve not turned the heat or air conditioner on, or, it’s not working properly. Sudden changes in weight recordings, transmitted through detectors in the floor could indicate a fall.
In addition to being able to send this information to your doctors, you’ll be able to choose who else receives it. If you have children who are concerned about you and worry, seeing you through a computer camera can ease their minds. They will feel more secure in knowing you really are “ok”. If an item of importance to your health comes up, they can be alerted immediately. No matter where they are, the alert will go to a hand held or table top device. They can call you to see if you’re ok, and if you don’t respond, call a neighbor to come check on you. The appropriate level of help can be called. We don’t always need an ambulance.
I believe this technology will be available at reasonable cost, and that eventually insurance policies will cover it. This new way of practicing medicine will save doctors time, enabling them to spend more than fifteen minutes with those patients whose conditions truly warrant a visit. There should be significant savings to skyrocketing health care costs, and less opportunity for fraudulent billing.
Unfortunately, we don’t have these master systems in place yet, but in the not so distant future we will. I look forward to the day when moving out of familiar surroundings in order to have help with day-to-day activities is a thing of the past.