This subject is somthing we’re doing a lot on here in Hull, England. We’re currently deplying a elders care project, a cardiac care project, and independent living pilot using broadband IPTV, with community, commercial and public service partners (as an example, see http://www.wtchull.com/Telehealth.html). We’re not the only ones doing this - we’re collaborating with others around England (see http://www.dc10plus.net/dc10/d.....ent-living) & there’s quite a bit of stuff going on re this around the EU.

But’ it’s not just about care. Also about personalised and more productive services. Also, brings a connected gateway into the home, people can do what they want and control what happens to them. This is a way of making sure there are multiple returns of investment and citizens get more value from whatever’s put in their homes.

It’s important to work with the people it’s supposed to benefit, not imposing something on them. That’s what we’re doing. This includes communications so we’re building two way video communcations into the next pahse of development

It’s crucially about transformed care business models that enable people to live longer, happier and cheaper. As Steve Hard’s website shows, there’s plenty of stuff out there. It’s a question of how it’s used to make sure the citizen, service provider & the care funder (public or private) gets the benefit.

Note: “Jerry Smith” says ” I have found a revolutionary product” as if he is a consumer who has chanced on a terrific find. He later says that the system alerts “our” response center which implies that he is associated with the company. QuietCare may be a useful product, but if Jerry is, in fact, associated with the company, planting a comment isn’t a truthful way to promote it. Please be aware, I have no affiliation with the product or the company.

Independent Living has offered such a system for many years. ADP provides the back-end service center.
The largest Personal Emergency Response System vendor, LifeLine, was acquired 18 months ago by Phillips.

As LifeLine’s growth curves made obvious: there are a large and growing number of elderly whose families are remotely located. That said, these systems can feel very intrusive. More over, aides who may assist elderly with monitored homes can really resent the surveillance.

What’s interesting here is the attempt to provide a simple consumer retail package appropriate for big box store distribution.

http://www.worksopguardian.co......3660761.jp

Interestingly, the issues raised in the comments here concerning the rights and wrongs of surveillance are hardly ever raised in the UK and, when they are, do not produce the kinds of responses seen here. Most older people, given the choice of going into a care home or remaining in their own home with monitoring, much prefer the latter and would object if it were removed.

One of the benefits not mentioned by any of the comment posters here is that some older people and their families find that when their health and safety is being monitored remotely family members are not constantly phoning them just to ‘just see if you are all right’. Both parties can resent those calls which become a chore for the person making them and a source of suspicion on the part of the older person that the caller is just wanting to see if they have inherited yet. When monitoring is done by technology, phone conversations can go back to being ‘real’ communications and the quality of relationships improve.

For anyone who is interested in being alerted to developments in this field, my site Telecare Aware (http://www.telecareaware.com) posts news items every week.

So I would guess it’s a question of when, not if, this type of service is provided via the Internet. The main difference with this business model is that the monitoring alerts a relative, rather than a control centre. I’m sure there would be takers for both types of service.

Where is the older person’s viewpoint in this discussion? Services based on asking older people what they want will have a better chance of adoption and success.

(Please can I request the facility to report inappropriate posts? Zach’s choice of words is just wrong, no?).

Finding ways to care for people at home rather than in the hospital after things get complicated is the key to containing our otherwise unstoppable and unsustainable healthcare spending, now over $2 trillion per year in the United States.

One point that these technology centered approaches often miss: Rather than loading up on technology, the key is to find ways to use frequent communication and connection to change behavior - like taking medications properly, improving diet and exercise, and recognizing problems early.

I think the good outweighs the bad, especially for families they don’t live nearby. I talk to my parents constantly, but sometimes we go days without talking, when they’re older this could be immensely useful, even if just a way to know they haven’t fallen, or something happened.

Perfect example, my mother and her other half drive a tractor trailer across country, my mother’s boyfriend’s mom stays at home when they go. The trip is a week or two at times. They speak to her constantly, but recently her health had started to degrade, they didn’t want to ship her to a home, and couldn’t afford to give up their lively hood, but needed to be able to ensure she was taking her medicine and eating right. She was stubborn and didn’t like anyone worrying on her.

This would have saved them tons of money that was spent on a nurse to visit her a few times a week and would have been more effective (read 24/7). They would have known sooner that she wasn’t taking her medicine right while they were away, and that she was having trouble moving from room to room.

So yeah, I think its a excellent idea, as long as its agreed upon by both parties and isn’t a substitute for actually interacting with family as well.

Or do they? It’s not clear exactly what their “sensors” and “realtime metrics” are measuring. TONS of markteting bullshit for every ounce of information.

Look, one of my grandparents who lives alone recently bent down to pick something up, felt light in the head, fell, and spent many hours collapsed on the bathroom floor before anyone knew.

There’s no “realtime metic” any motion detector is going to tell me that would detect that. Period. But a simple camera would, even just a live camera without much of a rewind would let me detect it within minutes.

Get serious. Seniors are living a life or death, perilous journey each time they cross the room. If you want to pander to the privacy concerns of their children or grandchildren, feel free to fade into obscurity.

But FFS, this is an opt-in product, right? It requires a hardware installation in the frikkin’ house, right? Well, hell. Go for broke. Protect these people. Do what it takes. Goddammit.

But if they’re going to quibble about privacy, or, more likely, if their family members are going to quibble about watching them poo and masturbate, as they surely do, then we’re all going to continue our little culture of ignore-them-till-they-die, which most folks are in fact happy with, underneath.

This is a product aiming to turn over the most rotten rock in our culture: the way we treat our elders. No one wants that to happen. Deadpool.

btw- @8: inheritance update via RSS feeds was funny as hell!

This would not have made sense several years ago, but given all the advancements, it’s time has come with health care being what it is in the US.

Alive… Alive… Still Alive… Inheritance Update!

And why just keep it in the home? A bluetooth pendant could easily transmit vital signs to an internet-enabled mobile phone.

This would be particuarly useful for when granny goes snowboarding off-piste, cave diving in Peru or shopping in Ikea.

How about using this for home/vacation house security ??