Mom or Dad doesn't want to move to assisted living or a nursing home. But you are worried about Mom falling or Dad forgetting to take his medication at the right time. What can you do with parents who want to live out their days at home? Technology to the rescue.
There are now a wide variety of high-tech gadgets and systems that help seniors remember to take their pills, warn family or emergency services that they have fallen, or even monitor daily habits. These are big advances over the older technologies you've seen advertised on TV. Large corporations, entrepreneurs and universities are busy developing new and better methods to meet the growing demand from older adults and their adult children. Among these are U.C.L.A. Wireless Health Institute and Philips.
This whole new concept in high tech support is really wonderful, if you can get over the idea that it's a little bit like "Big Brother". Still, according to two articles in the New York Times, seniors can get used to being monitored. And if the adult children frame the requests to use technology properly, they can demonstrate love and care, rather than a need to control.
Read more about the technology via these links:
http://www.wirelesshealth.ucla.edu/
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/29/garden/29hometech.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/29/garden/29parents.html
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