Technological advances are significantly reducing long-term-care costs by letting the infirm elderly live longer in their homes, a tech and elder care expert told a U.S. Senate special committee on aging Wednesday.
Marjorie Skubic, director of the Center for Eldercare and Rehabilitation Technology at the University of Missouri, said promising technological advances such as in-home radar and sound-monitoring equipment can detect falls and alert medical personnel to problems with seniors in their homes so that the patients don’t have to push buttons or make phone calls.
Skubic added that bed sensors can capture a patient’s restlessness, as well as pulse and respiration rates. Such advances are important since, for one thing, one of every three elderly patients falls each year.
New technology could also help curb long-term-care costs by replacing nurses who check the vital signs of assisted living residents or hospital patients at all hours of the day. Computers can do the same thing at home.
Even replacing a cheap plastic pill box with an electronic version costing many times that can lead to lower costs down the road by preventing seniors from mixing medications or taking too many pills.
Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the special committee’s Republican chair, said that these advances will not only save money but make it possible for seniors to live at home longer and be more engaged with their families and communities.
Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, the lead Democrat on the aging committee, generally praised such advances, but said video monitoring should not greatly threaten the privacy of seniors.
One way to address this is a method being developed at the university of using only silhouettes on video monitors.
In one of the stories told at the hearing, a couple had a toilet sensor placed in the home of an elderly parent. The sensor let them know when she was going to the bathroom excessively, giving them early warning signs of a urinary tract infection that, had it been left to fester, could have led to a costly hospitalization.
However, it was warned that some home automation systems have crashed, which puts patients in danger.