The technology industry is paying more attention to the needs of older adults and the caregivers who serve them, as evidenced by the wide range of senior-targeted devices highlighted at the 2020 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), held in January in Las Vegas.
One of the more intriguing technologies for seniors introduced at CES included the Zibrio SmartScale. The device measures balance to assess fall risk using a technology originally designed to help astronauts improve their balance after spaceflight. The device was a CES 2020 Innovation Award honoree in the Health & Wellness category. It has already helped a Houston-area nursing home cut fall rates in half over a two-year period.
Another Innovation Award honoree was MedWand, a handheld medical testing device with a camera that can perform 10 different assessments, including gathering a patient’s heart rate and temperature and performing an electrocardiogram (ECG). It’s designed to be used in long-term care facilities and other settings to enable patients and caregivers to share exam results remotely with physicians in real-time.
Assistive robots also continued to dominate the CES stage. PECOLA (Personal Companion for Older People Living Alone), from Taiwan-based Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) for example, was an Innovation Award honoree in the smart homes category.
Through ambient intelligence technology, PECOLA follows users around their home and can detect emotions, perform video-based diet analyses and conduct sleep analyses by detecting breathing and heart rate. The robot provides daily reports on these activities to the user’s caregiver.
From the February 2020 Issue of McKnight's Long-Term Care News
