Quiet Care Home Health Security System
The Quiet Care Home Health Security System (Warning, has sound that starts when you land on the page. Points deducted by me for stuff like that, but, I digress.) is either a great idea or a scary idea, I can’t decide which.
It’s designed for seniors living alone, and, it tracks their activities and alerts the caregiver if an important change in behavior occurs. It’s monitored by ADT ( a home security company), and, it tracks the person’s behavior all day. It alerts the caregiver to events such as “late wake-up”, “no bathroom exit”, “night-time bathroom activity”.
It seems like anyone requiring this level of monitoring might be in need of assisted care by, you know, actual people. Anyone who is independent enough where this type of monitoring might be a reassurance more than a necessity probably wouldn’t tolerate the intrusion. I can see someone like my dad getting annoyed and saying, “I was in the bathroom to get away from you people!”
I’ve written about these kinds of monitoring technologies, too, and definitely have mixed feelings about them. I suppose the motivation behind their use really matters: if an elder person chooses to use them to maintain independence, that’s great; if family members force them on someone to either assuage guilt for not being personally available, or just because they’re “control freaks,” that’s a problem. I wonder if ADT considers these kinds of dynamics in selling their system…
I guess it depends on how the person using it feels about it. This sounds like exactly the kind of thing my grandfather would have demanded, because while he really couldn’t be left alone during the last year of his life, he was in sheer denial about it and was trying to extert as much independence as possible. We got many a phone call from my grandmother asking for help in getting him around before he was confined to his hospital bed. I don’t think this would have improved our personal situation any, but it might have provided more peace of mind to my grandmother or my parents.
nice! googd job!