Tag: Technology and Senior Care

Senior Care Awareness

June is a lot more than Father’s Day for older people. June is also the month senior care suppliers have to be able to encourage their ageing male family members to take the time to concentrate on their wellness and well-being. National Men’s Health Month is a nationwide observation that celebrates that and encourages them and or their family members to be conscious of their wellness risks and get educated on the ways that they could take better care of themselves throughout their lives.

If you provide senior care for your ageing father or grandfather, you are likely already conscious of the threats associated with ageing men. Offering care is essential, but would you have dedicated yourself to providing care to an ageing man, you encounter challenges in situations different from those of wellness care suppliers for women. Often, ageing men are more resistant to care and are likely to ignore indications of potentially serious wellness issues. This makes it a critical responsibility of any care provider for an ageing man to not only be vigilant of their loved one’s wellness, but also supportive in that man’s pursuit of ongoing wellness and well-being.

National Men’s Health Month is all about teaching men that focusing on their wellness is essential for them to be the best that they can be. This is about showing men how they can manage themselves and therefore manage their loved ones better. Aging men face a variety of prospective wellness issues, but many of them are either not conscious of the signs of these issues, or are reluctant to look for them. There are many ways that you can make this a meaningful National Men’s Health Month. Take the time to enjoy quality activities with the important men in your life, schedule screenings and checkups and make the commitment to adopt healthier lifestyle choices together. Contact the senior care agency in your area to find out where community activities are being held so you can get involved. If there are no activities planned, get together with some important men in your life and hold your own event.

Technology and Senior Care

Technological innovation has already made waves in senior care through the use smart-sensor systems that can observe residents’ motions, nearly removing the need for a room-by-room check in the morning. Eight in ten assisted living residents need help handling their medicine, according to the National Center for Assisted Living, and medicine management is placed to be the next focus for time saving performance through a new technology coming to market: digital pills. But that is not all they can do. Imagine a regular day in a senior care setting. Care providers visit the bedrooms of all citizens who get medicine. They provide the medicines and then wait around several minutes for each resident to take them, one by one, guaranteeing the amounts are not neglected or lost.

But what if the care provider simply left the daily amount and move along to the next resident, not having to worry about awaiting each individual to take each pill? Enter: digital pills. The development was released by Proteus Digital Health and obtained U.S. Food and Drug Administration acceptance last July 2012. The technologies are now being promoted for at-home use in Britain and will be getting in U.S. medical centers later this year, which could have wide significances for senior care. “Our electronic health reviews program is designed to help individuals better handle their care each and every day,” says David O’Reilly, primary product official. “Whether it nudges to help individuals keep on track with their schedule or better advised caregivers and physicians, the program will provide significant benefit to those who are suffering from way of life changes as a result of getting older.”

The digital pill works as part of a system to monitor and observe a person’s consumption of medicine as well as vital symptoms and activity. On standard, seniors use five to six prescriptions, according to a 2007 study released in the Journal of Internal Medicine. The digital pill has the ability of being integrated into medicine themselves, or being taken as a placebo pill along with medicine. Once digestive function starts, the pill, which contains an electronic indicator about the size of a grain of sand, goes to work. It sends data through a wearable patch, via Bluetooth straight to a family member’s or caregiver’s mobile phone or computer, allowing that individual to know the medicine has been taken, whether the individual is up and about, and even health alerts.