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Comments: 155 + - Science: 'I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up!' v2.0 on Saturday July 31, @06:53PM
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theodp writes "Remember those old Lifecall commercials? Well, you've come a long way, Grandma! The NY Times reports on a raft of new technology that's making it possible for adult children to remotely monitor to a stunningly precise degree the daily movements and habits of their aging parents. The purpose is to provide enough supervision to allow elderly people to stay in their homes rather than move to an assisted-living facility or nursing home. Systems like GrandCare, BeClose, QuietCare, and MedMinder allow families to keep tabs on Mom and Dad's whereabouts, and make sure they take their meds. Perhaps Zynga can make a game out of all this — GeriatricVille?"
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great (Score:4, Insightful)
Now social services in England will have another excuse not to help people who need human attendance. "This equipment works just as well!" No, some GPS/accelerometer/camera/button is no substitute for the supervision, companionship and observational skill of humans.
Re:great (Score:4, Insightful)
The alternative is an archaic system of elder care called "families". I understand it was practiced in some parts of the world back in the 20th century.
Apparently, here in the brave new world of the 21st century, every relative has to work in order to pay off the credit cards and cell phone bill, so there's insufficient personnel to staff these "families".
Parent
Re:great (Score:5, Insightful)
The alternative is an archaic system of elder care called "families".
Right, where to begin...
(1) Yes, families do have the option to look after older members to a certain degree, and it's sad that parents in some societies are encouraged to separate themselves from their children and vice versa;
(2) But not everyone has children. Recall also that children are a huge unearnt burden to the state, while older people have already paid their national insurance / social security / whatever contributions and are just getting the care they paid for. We are all better off because we do not breed out of concern about our frailties;
(3) There are certain classes of illnesses better tackled by a staff of trained physical and mental health shift workers. For example, someone who is senile but mobile can be a great danger to themselves. They will keep you up all night. When do you propose to sleep?
There are lots of poor alternatives to a good system of social welfare, and assuming that everyone has a loving able family of infinite resources produces one of them.
Parent
Re:great (Score:4, Insightful)
>(1) Yes, families do have the option to look after older members to a certain degree, and it's sad that parents in some societies are encouraged to separate themselves from their children and vice versa;
(2) But not everyone has children. Recall also that children are a huge unearnt burden to the state, while older people have already paid their national insurance / social security / whatever contributions and are just getting the care they paid for. We are all better off because we do not breed out of concern about our frailties; >
My preteen children year old are on firm warning... they can move out of state, but we parents are coming after them and moving into their attics/basements/spare rooms. There is no escape. And we live what we talk, taking care of our mother/mother-in-law next door.
Are we better off if people do not breed for the purposes of old age insurance? I doubt it. We are better off if people do not breed excessively out of fear that disease will utterly deprive them of offspring for old age, but it is probably more sustainable to "entrain" children in the care of parents out of a sense of duty, than it is to free them to maximize their income and then tax that income to pay "someone else" to provide elder care.
We might ask "would it not be more efficient for a lawyer or engineer to earn $200 K and pay someone else $50 K to watch an elder?" but that is probably a rare case. The cost of quality care is the cost of middle class income anyway, roughly, so why should this family service be exogenized into the market as opposed to remaining endogenous to the family?
Well there is ONE very good reason and that is that women are the vastly predominant providers of elder care services. Marketizing those services enables women to have public careers as opposed to be locked into the family care giver role... mother to children, nurse to elders... for their entire life. Families are only "free" if you ignore the lost opportunities they tend to cause for women.
Parent
I'll just warn you (Score:3, Interesting)
You'd better be nice to your kids, and foster a good relationship. You might think such a thing in mandatory on their part but let me assure you it is not. When they turn 18 (and at any time after) they can sever any and all ties with you. You have no legal claim to force them to care for you. If they want to leave you to fend for yourself, they can.
I warn this, because I've known more than a couple students that have come through (I work at a university) who's parents seem to assume they should have to pay
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
My preteen children year old are on firm warning... they can move out of state, but we parents are coming after them and moving into their attics/basements/spare rooms. There is no escape.
If my parents did that, I'd call the cops on them for trespassing just like they did for me. I had to resign a good internship because I wasn't certain where I was living for a few days.
In hindsight, sure, I was stupid to trust them without a written lease. I should have ditched them when I was 16 instead of waiting for them to upset my life with a 0-day move-out notice.
Re:great (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:great (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Also as lifespans increase (Score:3, Insightful)
This becomes more of a problem. If you are 60 years old, with some health problems of your own and still working for a few more years, do you really have time to look after your 85-90 year old parents? You can't very well be all day care, you still have to work, and you have commitments to your own health as well outside of that. Also the conditions of extremely advanced age can be much, much worse than younger, requiring nearly continuous attention of some kind.
The people who look back to the "family did e
The old days weren't that good (Score:4, Insightful)
In the 20th century, which you remember so fondly, it was a woman's job to be a mother and housewife. It was she who stayed at home taking care of children and elders, while dad went to work.
Also, the gap between rich and poor was so wide that middle-class families earned enough to hire helpers from the lower classes. There was the cook, the housemaid(s), the gardener, to help take care of house and family.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Not always. My mom worked in a munitions plant during WWII and after the war had a career working full-time. But since I lived in an extended family, and my grandparents lived in the same big house (actually a 2-flat in Chicago) there was no need for day care. So "elder care" and "child care" are both taken care of just by having a family that stuck together.
Not far from the house I live in now, there's
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The alternative is an archaic system of elder care called "families". I understand it was practiced in some parts of the world back in the 20th century.
Families were often much larger.
Three kids. Six kids.
Families were often much less mobile.
Five generations of our own family still live within the same township.
Jobs for women outside the household were still scarce.
Before World War Two it wasn't at all unusual for a middle class family of relatively modest income to employ full or part time help.
The alter
Re:great (Score:5, Informative)
You might also remember most were not middle class, most were poor. Those poor folks that made all this possible often had horrible lives, the middle class therefore had it's luxury on the backs of these other people.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Sorry, I was referring to the US, not the UK.
We used to have a very large middle class here in the US, thanks to labor unions. It's not so much any more since Reagan, and the ruling corporations realized they couldn't have a middle class with choices if they were going to maximize quarterly profits.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I come from three generations of two-kid families. Everyone has lived to at least 68 and most over 75. I was the first to go to college. None has gone to "retirement homes". It's to a large part a matter of choice and priority, and to a large part thanks to labor unions, which brought such social advances as health insurance and pensions, which unfortunately have been under constant attack from the ownership class here in the US.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Before WW-II was the Great Depression. Unemployment was over 50%. I doubt that many had hired help during that time.
Unemployment was high - but at its peak, more like 20% than 50%. Great Depression in the United States [wikipedia.org] Race and sex could up those numbers dramatically, of course.
Not everyone goes bust in hard times - not everyone prospers in boom times.
If you had a middle class income in the Depression, domestic help was easy to find and cheap.
Re:great (Score:4, Interesting)
"The alternative is an archaic system of elder care called "families". I understand it was practiced in some parts of the world back in the 20th century"
Elder care is utterly consuming and exhausting. Been there, done that. It is not a one person job, but monitoring tech can help monitor other caregivers (I used cams for this) as well as the oldster in question. The extreme demands of elder care can exhaust even fit, dedicated, informed, and intelligent caregiving relatives.
Modern medical technology ensures years of madness, incontinence, and incontinent madness await most of us. We WILL be a burden on all who care for us (even love doesn't make it not a burden), and should know that long before we turn to shit. There is no heroism in merely living as long as possible, just giving in to fear. Hunter Thompson and Ernest Hemingway were wise to check out before what made them men was taken from them.
Warren Zevon chose differently, and left us this to think about:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qV6E0KYiMmM [youtube.com]
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
US Life Expectancy [cdc.gov] [PDF]:
Born 1900: 49
Born 2000: 77
Immediately from this we can see the task of looking after an old person is not the same. Very, very unfortunately, this is not even close to being the problem.
Compounding the life expectancy is the birth rates over the period. For example, in Britain already the number of pensioners exceed the number of c
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd love to take care of my mom all day, but if I did, I'd have to move into her tiny house (because I'd lose my house, which she can't get around in because of all the stairs), and YOU'D be paying for me to eat and go to the doctor, because I would have no income. Now, if we had universal healthcare, reasonably priced education (I'll probably be paying for college forever), and any ability to recover after losing jobs and our credit ratings getting screwed (which, ironically, hurts when looking for a good job, which would allow us to fix things), then our families might have the ability to care for our elderly again.
I DO take care of a disabled parent and have for 12 years, almost entirely by myself. I've been in the position of being unemployed for the last 4 years - you think it's hard getting a job right now, try getting a job that allows you to take a physically disabled parent to work with you since working is pointless unless you can make more, after taxes, than it costs to send the parent to adult daycare ($60+ per day (meaning you need to make at least $90, or about $12/hr just to break even or $20/hr to earn m
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I for one have NO desire to know what 'movements' my parents have, nor when they may have them, nor which type of movement it is.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
luddism [wikipedia.org] anyone?
just because a technology is available, it does not automatically make us more evil.
Along those same lines, you could argue that phone is inherently bad - as it is no substitute for comanionship. (phone is not bad: it is just an additional useful tool, to be used wisely)
Re: (Score:2)
just because a technology is available, it does not automatically make us more evil.
Just because air is available, it doesn't automatically make us more alive. But it's in our nature to breathe, so it's gonna happen.
These sorts of "enabling" technologies are routinely abused by social services in England because it is in the nature of this government to take as much as possible and give as little as possible, where the "giving" is by mutual back-scratching with private vendors of unnecessary crap.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I liked the idea that the operators of a nursing home in Germany had, where they put a fake bus stop at the end of the road. They looked after a lot of Alzheimer's patients, who would wander off and try to make their way home. Of course, they'd get as far as the bus stop, and wait for a bus - so if you noticed someone was missing you knew the first place to look.
It's a bigger problem than people realise. I used to work near a nursing home, where one of my minion's grandmother stayed. About once a week s
GeriatricVille (Score:2, Funny)
Great, I can just see the Facebook updates now:
"My grandma just had a heart attack and fell in the bathroom in GeriatricVille. Can you help me out?"
Re:GeriatricVille (Score:5, Funny)
Actually I think PharmVille would be more appropriate to ensure they're taking their meds.
Parent
Global Parent System. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well as someone taking care of an Alzheimer parent I can see how all this will be beneficial. Being a caregiver is hard and we need all the help we can muster.
Nice... (Score:2)
"Grandpa, you'd better wipe really good because it sounds like you have the runs."
In the movies... (Score:3, Funny)
A octogenarian 007 would probably deal with this by attaching the device to a friendly dog, and going about his geriatric super-spy business.
Re: (Score:2)
Bathroom Activity Monitoring Based on Sound (Score:3, Insightful)
Has anyone ever done an analysis.... (Score:2)
It actually was a very serious commercial, but nobody I knew at the time took it very seriously. In fact, that rather famous line was not infrequently mocked by people, quoted satirically, or parodied. I do not think this was done out of disrespect for the elderly, however.
So what was it that made that line become what today we would call a "meme"?
I wonder if KYM could do a meme show on something from that far b
Well that's easy to remember! (Score:2, Funny)
0118 999 881 999 919 725
3
This is a bug, not a feature (Score:5, Interesting)
If I had alzheimers to the point where I was wandering off into the woods somewhere, unable to get home, I don't think I'd like to be "rescued" with a GPS device. My own grandfather (alzheimers) tried to commit suicide at least once by sitting in his car in his garage with the engine turned on. He was found and "rescued". He lived to a somewhat older age, with all the dignity of a crazy old man, not knowing who most of his relatives were, shitting his pants, etc. I hope my relatives don't keep me around against my will as a still technically living reminder of the person I once was.
As the usual proportion of baby boomers start to become demented, I hope we will see some more realism about what dementia is. There will be a lot of demented people and the associated problems will become commonly experienced. Car accidents for one. It's not going to be pretty.
Re:This is a bug, not a feature (Score:4, Interesting)
"It is arrogant and irresponsible to project your own motives and emotions into the mind of someone with a senile dementia."
Senile dementia is so mentally destructive that interfering with an apparent suicide attempt is extremely cruel. I watched both my parents eventually succumb, and if I'd walked in on either doing "suicide by car" I'd have walked out and shut the door. THAT would have been kindness.
May everyone who wants to prolong the life of the demented, become demented themselves. It takes a while, so you can know the bitter frustration of losing your faculties bit by bit by bit...
Parent
Coming soon to a job or government near you! (Score:3, Interesting)
You're kidding yourself if you think wearing one of these won't be mandatory to qualify for a life insurance policy in 10 years. Without life insurance, you can't get a job, without a job, you can't get a citizen number, without a citizen number, you can't buy food from state-owned stores (because food distribution is too important to be left in the hands of crazed free market advocates). Fill in the blanks with snippets from the dystopian sci-fi writer of your choice.
Re:Coming soon to a job or government near you! (Score:4, Interesting)
Let me take a wild guess, you're sufficiently afraid of the medical establishment to have avoided contact with them for an extended amount of time?
Because that is one serious case of paranoia you got going on there...
Parent
Viagra problems now: (Score:2)
"Help, I've got up and I can't come down!"
Helicopter children (Score:3, Funny)
So, some day the children of helicopter parents will get their revenge.
Assuming some of them at some point learn how to live.
Gee what happened to grandma living with her kids? (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, but is mom going to be ok with it? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yes, but is mom going to be ok with it? (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Not everyone is practical (Score:3, Insightful)
People get things stuck in their heads like "I won't use a baby monitor because I'm not a baby," and won't budge on it, regardless of practical considerations. Goes double for people who's minds are going anyhow. It is a continual problem with regards to getting people to take medication for mental conditions. Their logic goes along the lines of "Only sick people take medicine, I don't want to be sick so I won't take any medicine." Then they slip back in to whatever their particular form of crazy is, of cou
Micro Jet Pack (Score:3, Funny)
Hey all you jet pack affectionados!
How about making a micro miniature jet pack about the size of 20 oz beer can! Grandma can wear it on her shoulders. When she falls down, she just reaches over, pops the mini jet pack off her shoulder strap, point it at the ground, press the button, and hold on tight!
WHooosh! Upsee daisy again! No calls, no worries, no lying on the floor for days in your own mess. Just a convenient reload after each fall.
So how about it, guys? Let's do something for grand-ma! And maybe she'll let you sample some of her medicinal marijuana. Sure leaves all that trash dorm weed in the dirt!
High cost $8,000 install , $75 /M (Score:4, Interesting)
High cost $8,000 install , $75 /M.
The creeping horror (Score:5, Funny)
Mrs Fletcher? (Score:3, Funny)
Wasn't the original old lady called Mrs Fletcher?
I remember a system crash/panic message from back in the days of Ultrix (an early version of Unix from Digital Equipment Co. that ran on MIPS). It read: "Mrs Fletcher has fallen down again and can't get up". Some engineer's idea of a joke. DEC were forced to change it though as affected customers were not amused.
Re: (Score:2)
In case you don't know, there are people who have to work for a living and can't stay home all day taking care of their parents.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In case you don't know, there are people who have to work for a living and can't stay home all day taking care of their parents.
Also, in case you don't know, there are people who have to work for a living and can't stay home all day taking care of their children.
It's all about priorities. Not judging, just saying.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh shut up. Seriously, I get real tired of people who have a loved one with problems and thus get touchy about every damn thing relating to that. Get a thicker skin, or stop reading message boards.
My point was not to throw the elderly out and let them die. My point was simply that care for them can be extremely difficult and stressful for many reasons. One of the reasons is that there's nothing to look forward to in terms of it getting better. That adds to stress.
As for my heirs, there will not be any. I am