A Look At Advanced Healthcare Technology For The Elderly

Senior citizens are often under the impression that the new wave of technology is only for the young. This is true to a certain extent as elderly find the new technology rather overwhelming however, many things finally started to change and speak in favour especially when healthcare industry’s a concern.

medicine, age, health care and people concept – senior woman, man and doctor with tablet pc computer at hospital ward

From a simple find a doctor app to something more radical, here’s how technology’s driving the medical business for the better.

Abstract

Spending quality time with grandparents is a lot of fun. It’s both fun and learning whereas you may need to speak out aloud to make them hear and understand that what you’re saying. With time and bearing weight of the world, an individual enters senior age that nowadays often poses certain health problems that may become imposing and a nightmare.

Living in the 21st century expose the elderly to radical technology in a fast-paced and evolutionary world which at first may seem overwhelming but once getting acquainted presents comfort and blessings!

The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimated that by the year 2050, more than two billion of the world population would get above the age 60 whereas statistics of the elderly is higher in urban setting.

Realising the fact, technology when aligned with healthcare produced unimaginable and highly successful results neither heard nor seen! Take for instance; find a doctor app that lets a user interact with medical specialist without ever leaving the comfort of home or office.

More and more start-ups along with corporations identified special needs for the elderly to make their lives peaceful, safe and healthy. Speaking of technology, let’s have a look at what’s best for the senior individuals with respect to healthcare!

Technology to prevent eventual falls

Body cells also age with physical-self making them more susceptible to damage whereas healing also takes a lot more time putting the elderly at risk of falling. And if it actually happens, individual may suffer from lack of mobility, severe depression and other physical plus mental conditions. While medical industry doesn’t have airbags to prevent fracturing a hipbone but there’re technologies to prevent potential fall.

Fall Detector is a hypoallergenic, waterproof and smart-watch lookalike wearable that’s capable to detect if a person’s about to fall. User can press an integrated panic button just in case of an emergency thereby alerting someone to get immediate help.

Then there’s another non-invasive technology that aids in restoring balance and walk, being very effective for patients with peripheral neuropathy. Both of these devices are attached to the knees, sending a pulse or signal to the brain for safe walking. The central nervous system interprets the signal from the device, motor system then responds in return and the cycle continues thus preventing fall.

Improved physical activities & walking

Regardless of age, physical fitness and sufficient daily movement are critical to healthy ageing whereby preventing stiffness in the muscles and joints. Thanks to healthcare tech, there’s a sensor that interprets physical limitations of a person and connect them with a therapist through find a doctor app. It further helps in developing physical fitness plan based on individual’s health and medical history.

This plan is then integrated to the sensor which returns a sort of expression or alert to keep the patients alert regarding their health and progress. The feedback is then sent to the designated therapist who further reviews the entire report, develop and revise the plan accordingly.

Sensory devices

With time and age, an individual’s ability to sight and hearing deteriorates gradually which is pretty clear when an elderly tune up the television volume to full or ask a person to speak louder than usual. Coping with this drawback, medical industry came up with a hearing aid that improves hearing ability in terms of voice clarity and volume without all that shouting or high-volume.

Conclusion

Rumours of high-tech glasses paired with a camera or identification scanner, allowing people to know the approaching person or perhaps a voice-identifier are revolving. We’ll have a look at more advance healthcare tech in second part of the series.