Adapting Technology to Help Our Aging Population

Sometimes I like to watch the classic television channel on cable. They show a lot of my favorite old shows like Bonanza and Gunsmoke. But, like a lot of other basic cable channels, they have a lot of commercials. I've noticed that a lot of the commercials are geared towards senior citizens. There is a lot of reverse mortgage commercials and commercials for life insurance policies.

But the commercials that have the greatest amount of air time are the commercials for power chairs. There are two big power chair companies: The Scooter Store and Hoveround. The Hoveround commercial shows an elderly man who is having trouble getting around his house and is worried that he will end up in a nursing home. But after he gets his Hoveround, he's good to go, even visit places like the Grand Canyon.

One inventor has done the Hoveround one better. He has invented a power chair that can go up and down steps. It's called the iBot Mobility System and it helps people who are wheelchair bound stand up on their own and actually go up and down stairs.

According to Medical News Today:

"With the numbers of people aged 65 and over growing, the costs to the state to care for them are set to continue rising across the European Union and the United States. "

In the United States this big chunk of folks who are about to turn senior is called the "Baby Boomers" so called because they were born in the late 40's and 50's, a time when we had prosperity and a whole lot of people could afford to start a family.

Developers from several different countries around the world came up with the "idea of bringing together many aspects of the modern computing world and applying them specifically to the one group in society that is least likely to already feel those benefits - senior citizens."

One of the ideas was to develop a wireless emergency call system that is wireless and uses a touch screen. One such device that is sold to day, although lacking touch screen technology, alerts the office that there is a problem even if the wearer is unconscious.

Current emergency call devices rely on analog technology, they use home phone lines. But the new technology is all digital and connected to the Internet, which allows a lot more functions to be programmed in. So aid can be sent even if the senior citizen is unable to say "I've fallen and I can't get up!"

Source: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/215642.php