The Trump Administration has taken a modest step towards expanding the use of remote monitors to track blood pressure and other vital signs for Medicare recipients living at home. While there is little evidence so far that remote monitoring improves health outcomes, advocates for seniors as well as device manufacturers believe the tools can make it more likely that frail [...]
Cancer researchers are closer than ever to achieving their long-held dream of turning the disease from a death sentence to a chronic illness. This would be a remarkable scientific achievement. But while people may soon routinely live decades with their cancer in remission or even cured, they will not become immortal. Most will eventually suffer from some other debilitating condition and [...]
For well over a decade, we’ve been tantalized by digital technology’s potential to assist family caregivers. They surely could use help managing the enormous challenges of caring for a loved one. And enterprising technologists could get very rich creating the right gizmos. Yet, while digital tech has profoundly changed the rest of our lives over the past few decades, it has [...]
What if you could be admitted to the hospital—in your own bedroom? That’s the idea of a health care model called Hospital at Home, which is aimed at elderly patients with diseases such as congestive heart failure, emphysema, urinary tract infections, or pneumonia. According to a new study published in the journal Health Affairs, people receiving this care through the [...]
Receiving personal care at home, as opposed to in a nursing facility or other institution, is not possible without two things: Somebody to provide the assistance and an appropriate place to live. A southern Virginia minister has come up with a possible solution to the second. MEDCottage is a portable, modular self-contained 24x12 dwelling that could be attached to the home [...]
How much can technology help the frail elderly live independently? The promise of high-tech assistive devices and monitoring systems has attracted the attention of many long-term care families, desperate for new ways to keep an eye on mom. Not surprisingly, some big companies, including GE and Cisco, as well as smaller start-ups and university research labs, are increasingly interested as well. [...]