# 191 | We owe our seniors better care. H.E.A.R.T. 4 Seniors mission provides state-of-the-art technology

After a vibrant life, you find yourself challenged, both physically & mentally. Perhaps an illness begins to take away your ability for self-care. Depending on others is something no one wants, but it happens to most of us.

Now, one caring health care professional saw the need to develop technology that can allieve unnecessary suffering and discomfort, alert to medical conditions that are the early signs of worsening health outcomes, and provide peace-of-mind to loved ones, caregivers and the patients themselves that someone knows what you need and addresses that need as soon as possible. 

Learn about this new technology developed by Biolink Systems. Roger King a former speech therapist-turned-nursing-home-director who leads his company to create rapid alert devices that can be worn on the wrist to monitor a long list of medical values, and incontinence briefs that alert when attention is required. The non-profit H.E.A.R.T. 4 Seniors and guest Patty Scott work hand-in-hand with Biolink to revolutionize senior and disability care, getting the technology where its needed, educating families about new advanced tech and innovative care that can be used to increase dignified outcomes and eliminate abuse and neglect in nursing homes.

H.E.A.R.T. 4 SENIORS FOUNDATION
9435 Waterstone Blvd.
Suite 140-18
Cincinnati, OH 45249
[phone]
[e-mail]

H.E.A.R.T.4 Seniors Podcast

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This week on iHeart Sense Today is a very special show.
We're talking about how to take better care of seniors
and those with disabilities at home or in long term
health care facilities, using emerging technology that can vastly improve
their quality of life, help eliminate abuse and neglect of
loved ones away from their family, and monitor medical values

(00:24):
and alert when early intervention is required.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
The whole idea is to get quick response, to get
needs met fast, and to communicate for that person.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
There's a lot to this, and we're going to get
to my guest, Roger King, CEO of Biolink Systems Technology
and Patty Scott, co founder of a nonprofit which is
revolutionizing senior and disability care here in the Tri State,
educating families and caregivers, and most importantly, helping offset the

(00:57):
costs of implementing these groundbreaking solutions for using technology from
today and tomorrow. It's the Heart for Seniors Foundation. Now
on iHeart Sinsey with Sandy Collins. So this is I
Heeart Sinsey and my guests today are part of a

(01:20):
new movement in using technology to really care for the
elderly and for those who are disabled in our community
and those who don't have a voice in their own healthcare.
This is a fascinating new technology that's been developed over
the last ten years or so. And we're going to
talk with the man who's created the biolink systems, Roger King,

(01:44):
and we're talking with the nonprofit head, Patty Scott, who's
the co founder of Heart for Seniors Foundation. Welcome to
both of you. I'm so excited about your venture and
what you're doing for the elderly and Roger, mostly for
those that don't have a voice, whether you're a disabled person,
whether you were as you said, you were sparked by

(02:07):
seeing a woman who was no longer able to speak
and we're caring for her, and realized that she was
suffering quietly and no one would know. She was thirsty,
she needed to have her brief change. She needed things
that she couldn't speak for and this created this concept
in your brain to use technology to replace that. So

(02:32):
I want to talk to you about how you got
biolink started and if you would give us that beginning story.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Okay, so earlier in my career, I managed nursing homes.
I was also a speech pathologist and I worked with
patients who had swallowing disorders and other kinds of breathing
problems were on tracks events and things like that. Her

(03:03):
name was Rosemary. Rosemary was a school teacher and she
was in her thirties. Oh, I didn't realize that she
was very young. She had MS and it was a
pretty severe form of MS, basically disabled her completely. She
had no movement, ultimately was lost her voice, her vocal

(03:30):
cords would no longer work. She was incontinent, and she
was totally dependent on other people to anticipate her needs
really because she couldn't vocalize. And you know, it's experiences
with Rosemary and people like that, you know, that made
me very aware that we needed to develop technology that would,

(03:53):
so to speak, speak for them to communicate needs to caregivers.
So we started working towards some concepts alert response technology,
and one of the first systems we developed was something
to monitor for incontinent episodes, because can you can imagine,
she's totally mentally alert, she has an incontinent episode, she's

(04:17):
fully aware of it, but she can't tell anyone, so
she has to wait and hope that somebody notices.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
And that's the problem, not just because it's uncomfortable, which
of course it is, but that condition leads to other
conditions that could be eventually fatal, where it could move
from infections to sepsist So it's more than just convenience
or making them comfortable. It really is a preventative issue.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
Laying in your own waste can create all sorts of
medical problems. Right, the most obvious one is skin breakdown,
which can start us just redness, it can proceed to
you know, deeper wounds, stage four wounds that go out
away to the bone because of the incontinence and the

(05:09):
continued exposure to the incontinence and lack of timely care.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
So you created this technology to figure out how to
alert someone when that needs to be addressed.

Speaker 3 (05:22):
Correct.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
They wear what looks like a normal adult brief, but
especially made and it uses a device that's attached to
it to communicate to the caregiver's phone and alert them
that your patient has had an incontinent episode. So now
you have that technology speaking to the caregiver and telling

(05:47):
them that we have an incident. You need to go
take care of the patient, and then presumably what happens
then is we get there faster.

Speaker 3 (05:56):
Right, So now we know we're not checking, checking once
while just to see.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
And we're not peeking in briefs and feeling of briefs
we know, so they can get there faster, which is
the key to those right. Anybody who's raised a child
knows how this works. UTIs are very common within CONTINM
patients because of them laying there in that bacteria rich
environment for hours and hours. Sometimes UTI's go to kidney infections,

(06:25):
go to sepsis, and you're looking at life threatening condition.
The whole idea is to get quick response, to get
needs met fast, and to communicate for that person.

Speaker 1 (06:41):
In a hospital, you have these systems where patients are
tied up to machines. This sort of replaces a lot
of that with wearables.

Speaker 3 (06:50):
Correct.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
This is technology that will monitor for a lot of
different conditions. What are those conditions you've caught dehydration and
what else?

Speaker 2 (07:01):
Okay, With that brief system as an example, you know
there's a very robust software program behind it. It will
tell you this person hasn't had urination and let's just
say you said it at six hours, they need fluids, right,
and some people's cases, it's turning and positioning. It will

(07:21):
alert on that, it will alert on a fever. It
will alert and tell you this person's laying on a
wound if they're in the wrong position. So it does
a lot of different types of alerts to caregivers to
make them aware they need to go do something. And
hydration is as you can imagine, if you can't feed yourself,

(07:44):
if you can't provide yourself fluids, if you can't pick
up that glass of water and drink it on your own,
you're waiting for somebody else to think of it for you.
And we're all consuming fluids if you think about it,
I mean all day long, you know. So people who
are dependent on human beings to do that for them,

(08:04):
they can easily become dehydrated. With dehydration, it's a big problem,
especially with the elderly and disabled people. So we want
to alert and say, wait a minute, we have no output.
If we have no output urinary output, then we know
there's something wrong with input.

Speaker 1 (08:23):
If you just tuned in, I'm Sandy Collins with iHeart Sinsey.
My guest today is Roger King and Patti Scott. Roger's
the CEO of Bilding Systems Technology, and he has made
it his personal mission to create modern technology to help
monitor the elderly and the disabled, those who can't speak
for themselves, or those who need medical monitoring at home,

(08:45):
more and long term care facilities. The system links up
with caregivers phones and alerts them immediately when they need help. Roger,
I didn't get a to B two C before I
saw your videos on YouTube. When you don't have any
experience with it, you don't realize what it leads to.
And that's what you're trying to bring out to the

(09:06):
public and let folks understand that these quality care issues
lead to other bigger problems that you can address before
it gets to those problems.

Speaker 3 (09:16):
That's the idea.

Speaker 2 (09:17):
The idea is to prevent the bigger problems from happening
by taking care of the care needs quickly, right, That's
the whole purpose of the technology. And literally, though just
from a bigger picture standpoint, people out there developing technologies,
companies doing all of these wonderful things with technology, they're

(09:38):
not focused on elderly and disabled people really.

Speaker 3 (09:42):
In fact, it's pretty neglected areas.

Speaker 2 (09:44):
So you know, doing these kinds of things and helping
to monitor and alert quickly can prevent disastrous outcomes. Now,
the risk wearable device is an example that we've developed
that's a whole other matter. The risk wearable device actually
will It will alert you if blood oxygen levels drop

(10:07):
below a certain level. You can set the thresholds and
you could say, okay, if my mom drops below ninety percent,
I want to know. I want her to know that's
a dangerous condition. When it starts to happen, you're looking
at falls, You're looking at all sorts of potential negative outcomes.
So this measures at the side of the risk. It's

(10:27):
FDA five ten K certified device. It can tell not
only you the user, it can tell an unlimited number
of family members we have a potential problem here. We
have blood oxygen level that drop below the threshold you set.
It can also do the same thing with heart rate
high or low. You could get you know, tachocardia or bradycardia.

(10:51):
It will also monitor temperature if we spike a fever.

Speaker 1 (10:55):
Which indicates infection, right.

Speaker 2 (10:58):
Could indicate COVID, could indicate any type of viral infection,
or wound infection or anything. Your body will often respond
with fever faster you know there's a fever, and you
can respond. The more effective you're going to be and
figuring out why and treating that underlying condition. It could

(11:20):
be pneumonia, it could be life threatening. In fact, some
of our trials in the field, it was amazing to
sit early on and watch on a computer screen. I'll
never forget this. I'm sitting there and there's three of
us there and we're watching the trials with some of
the patients, and we literally saw in five minutes a

(11:43):
lady's temperature who was bedridden and had all sorts of problems,
including shit to trade and so on. Watched her fever
go from normal to one hundred and three in a
matter of about five minutes. And we went to the
nurse who was on duty and said, can you please

(12:04):
check this patient and let's see what's going on because
we're seeing a fever on the computer screen. She looks
at the patients, she checks her fever. It's one hundred
and three. She calls the doctor, got an antibiotic going immediately.
It was a pneumonia, and that fast they treated it
with an antibiotic and it was completely effective. Never went

(12:26):
to the hospital, never went to the er. They treated
it in place very rapidly. The idea is for the
alert response is to get that fast response, to get
that early detection so that you can prevent something from
becoming life threatening or exacerbating to some horrible level. Now

(12:47):
the phone can communicate with an unlimited number of people.
Let's just say you had your mother at home wearing
this device, or your father. You can get text messages
or alerts sent tea you. You could be at work
and see, wait a minute, my mother's blood oxygen level
just drop below ninety. I got alerted, my brother, my

(13:08):
sister got alerted, whoever you want, and now everybody knows,
and you know, somebody can react and figure out what
just happened. People with COPD, with congestive heart failure, you know,
these kinds of problems can happen quickly and then you
know they're dizzy, they fall, You know, all sorts of

(13:29):
repercussions can occur. But you know, if you if you
know quickly, you can move quickly. You can move quickly
and you can be effective. You can be more effective.

Speaker 1 (13:39):
So your technology is available for people that are in
nursing homes, long term care facilities, and in their homes.
You're working on research to improve products, which you have
a long list of different products that are available, and
then you're backed by the folks at Heart for Seniors
Foundation and Patty is here. Patty, I know you're just
as blown away as you guys have made me with

(14:01):
this technology. The wearable monitors are not available in stores.
How does Heart for Seniors look at your role as
a nonprofit to support this work.

Speaker 4 (14:12):
So I've been fortunate to be around Roger for years,
and I've seen the technology, and I think sometimes until
you're put in a situation where you live the technology
and I live the technology. My parents are eighty eight
years old. They both still live at home, and this
last December it hit me hard the entire ecosystem. Number one,

(14:34):
my dad has very thinning skin, and he could just
casually bump into a wall and he'll completely just bleed
and bleed and bleed and bleed. And then we put
a band aid on it, and you rip the band
aid off and now you have another wound. And we
had searched and searched and searched, and finally Roger said,
you know, you really should try him on our silicone composites.

Speaker 1 (14:58):
Patty, I'm going to stop you right there for just
a second. That's Patty Scott, co founder of the nonprofit
Heart for Seniors, helping revolutionize senior and disability care right
here in the Tri State. We'll find out what happens
with her dad and how it could work for you
and your family. Next on iHeart Cincy. This is fifty
five karc an iHeartRadio Station. I'm Sandy Collins with iHeart

(15:20):
Sinsey talking with a couple of revolutionary folks here today.
My guests are Roger King, the CEO of Biolink Systems Technology,
and the co founder of Heart for Seniors, Patty Scott,
who is just in the middle of a story about
taking care of her father who is eighty eight years old.
He's got wounds that won't heal very easily and he

(15:43):
gets hurt quite a bit just doing normal everyday things
around the home, and Roger suggested that she use his
brand new technology silicone bandages. So we'll find out, Patty,
did you take him up on that offer?

Speaker 4 (16:00):
I did, and literally my dad was like, you've got
to be kidding me, Like, no longer did we have wounds.
The other thing is my dad has congestive heart failure
and he was starting to fall. We didn't know why
he was falling. We didn't know if it was medication related.
He was in the hospital, would go to rehab, we'd

(16:20):
come back home, and what we were finding and worked
with his heart doctor, We've worked with his pulmonologists, and
their frustration was is there's nothing out there that can
let him know when his pul soox drops below ninety
if so he could station in place and prevent a fall.
And so we started having him wear the wrist wearable

(16:44):
at home and all of a sudden, it just in
a matter of seconds, if he was standing in the
kitchen or going to the bathroom, if it would alert him,
he'd realize it was he knew he was going to
be getting dizzy, and so he would sit down so
that he wouldn't fall. And so here I am five
hours away. I'm taking care of my own kids, but

(17:05):
I have parents that are eighty eight years old and
I want to keep them at home as long as possible,
and so this technology has completely kept me with peace
of mind. Now that being said, my parents are on
Social Security. They don't get a whole lot of money,
and so I just was like, well, I'm going to

(17:26):
just pay for the technology and make sure that they
have what they have. But then the more they started
talking to people, more phone calls started coming in, and
there was just a lot of people with need out there,
and so we were taking care of a lot of
those people that were coming in. And I thought, you know,
I'm going to go to some local foundations and I'm
going to go to some local companies because I just

(17:47):
know they're going to want to support these people in
need with this technology. And I was disappointed when they
love the technology, they want to help, but the dollars
didn't roll in. So we were contacted ironically by a
local attorney whose mother died in a nursing home from

(18:09):
a wound that had gone to the bone because they
had not turned her. And she looked at us and
she said, you're starting the nonprofit because I've searched high
and low across the country and there's nothing that supports
seniors or those that are disabled with technology. And literally,
with her help and support, she had us up and

(18:30):
running in thirty days.

Speaker 1 (18:31):
And what's her name, Barbara Applegate? Thank you, Barbara.

Speaker 4 (18:36):
Yes, And she's been wonderful. She has been an advocate.
She has put us in front of many, many donors.
But I will have to say Brian Brian's show. We
got a phone call.

Speaker 1 (18:49):
You're talking about Brian Thomas, the morning guy on fifty
five KRC, our sister station.

Speaker 4 (18:54):
Yes, and Brian was so gracious to have us three
weeks after we had been approved as an official nonprofit.
And Brian himself had this amazing story because his father,
he dealt with the situation, the same situation with his
dad in a facility, very sad, very neglected. You know,

(19:14):
he couldn't be there all the time, and so he
just was so great. And then Brian's listeners every time
we were on every Friday, we started realizing there's so
much need for education, there's so much need for support.
Nobody can get a hold of any skincare products that
don't tear or rip their wounds. No one can find

(19:35):
any kind of technology for incontinence to be able to
work with their loved ones at home or in a
nursing home. And so that's how heart Ford Seniors transpired.
So the great news is people can actually go donate
money if that's just what they want to donate. We're
actually adding, we're pretty excited where they can actually shop
and donate boxes of skin tears and dressings and things

(19:59):
to people who can afford the skincare sort and dressings.
And we want to be able to continue to educate
and be the hub for the families. Education is key,
and people feel lonely. They don't know where to go.
They don't know where to seek the care, they don't
know where to seek the technology or where to go
to get where to start and so where that voice

(20:20):
and then can direct them. Our network because of Roger,
is amazing. If they need a woundcare specialist, we can
get them to a woindcare specialist or get them various
different referrals out there. We can at least educate them,
and that's what's most important. That's why Heart for Seniors
was born. We have to be there to give them

(20:42):
this technology and to make all this technology available.

Speaker 1 (20:49):
If you just joined us, I'm speaking with Roger King.
He's the founder of Biolink Systems Technology and the co
founder of Heart for Seniors Foundation Patty Scott. They have
this amazing mission to take care of seniors and the
disabled and those who have lost their voice and can
no longer speak for themselves about their own care. You
know whether you're dehydrated whether or not you're you got

(21:12):
a fever, you've got an infection. There's other whether or
not you need to have your bed elevated. I mean, Roger,
this is amazing air quality, your blood pressure, your mood change,
whether or not you're going to fall, fall prevention monitors.
There's so many things that I'd like to get out
there and at least kind of pique people's interests, because
those are the things that you deal with when you're

(21:34):
looking at your grandparents or your parents and you don't
even know where to start this technology. How does somebody
get it their for their family member at home?

Speaker 2 (21:46):
They need to contact HEART for seniors because Heart is
going to be the quarterback coordinator of directing people depending
on what their needs might be. And you know, as
as Patty mentioned, the skincare is an example, there are
so many people out there who have very very fragile skin.

(22:09):
Elderly people on their arms, on their legs. They can
simply bump that arm and they've got a tear in
that skin and then now it's bleeding and they're trying
to figure out what can I do? And you can
go to the pharmacy and look, you're not going to
find an appropriate treatment for that because the skin's too fragile.

Speaker 3 (22:32):
So what we developed was a special adhesive.

Speaker 2 (22:36):
It took a lot of time and a lot of effort,
but we came up with an adhesive and a film
and a pad and other components of the stressing. It's
so gentle that not only does it go on that
skin tear, when they take that dressing off, they're not

(22:56):
creating another tear. It's very comfortable, it's not painful. It's
an amazing dressing. It's almost like another layer of skin
and you put that.

Speaker 1 (23:07):
On and person, it'll stay.

Speaker 3 (23:10):
It'll stay. It's waterproof actually yea.

Speaker 2 (23:13):
So the adhesive, it took lots of interaction with the
engineers to get it right, but we got it perfect.

Speaker 3 (23:22):
That is the thing.

Speaker 2 (23:23):
I think a lot of people it's just that simple issue.
It's a quality of life problem. You cannot find products
like this. This is a professional grade product.

Speaker 1 (23:33):
And so how do people get it?

Speaker 3 (23:36):
Contact Hard for Seniors, Yes, Patty, I'll let you handle that.

Speaker 1 (23:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (23:39):
If they go to Hard for Seniors, they can call
us at five one three four four four twenty thirteen.
They can go to the website which is Heart the
number four seniors dot Org again if they can email
us and we will give them a call back and
really talk with them and determine what it is that

(24:00):
they need. However, we will also have right on the
page they'll see donate as well as shop and they'll
be able to just purchase directly off the website if
that's what they prefer to do.

Speaker 1 (24:10):
What is it that you want to see in the future, Roger,
where do you want this to go? You said in
your video on YouTube that you need to scale this up.
This could be life changing for millions of people across
the country. What do you need?

Speaker 2 (24:24):
We need money, of course, to help take care of people,
which is where Heart for Seniors came in. We need
to continue to develop more technology and put it into
the ecosystem so that seniors are surrounded with technology that
watches over them and helps make sure they're being taken

(24:45):
care of. We're in the process of developing hydration monitors
that can use technology to alert them. You need to
take in fluids, other kinds of technologies, even infra red
that we can put in a home and alert to
certain medical conditions, including potentially high blood pressure at the

(25:09):
risk level and literally watch the veins contract and expand
and get a blood pressure reading. So there's the there's
an unlimited amount of things that can happen what we need, truthfully.

Speaker 3 (25:23):
And I watched Patty with us.

Speaker 2 (25:24):
I mean, I watched Hartford Senior's attempt to get the
interest of corporate America, to get to get the interest
of people like Parkter and Gamble or AARP to help
support the development of this and the advancement of this.
And it's crickets when it comes to check writing. And

(25:46):
it's sad because these are the very people you think
would step up. The donations she's gotten have been from
individuals people and you know, yeah, and it's of course
we've invested. I haven't said a lot of my own
money in this. And we're going to continue to move forward,
but slow. I'd like to move faster. I would like

(26:06):
to get technology to more people.

Speaker 1 (26:10):
Well, Roger, you just threw it down there, right there, Come.

Speaker 3 (26:12):
On, p and g everybody.

Speaker 2 (26:14):
I mean, honestly, I can only tell you where she's been,
and it's just been amazing to me to watch the
failure of people to respond to those.

Speaker 4 (26:28):
And I would also like to add one other thing,
if there really are local companies. I love this city
and I believe in this city. And if there are
any local companies that really do want to support our
local seniors and those that are disabled, please reach out
to us, Please sit down with us, because we would
love for you to come in and partner. And even foundations.

(26:49):
I know that there's Cincinnati Foundation, the Hamilton Community Foundation,
There's all these foundations that are there. It's time that
we make a difference and that we really show that
we care about the elderly and those that are disabled
and not just talk about it, but make action.

Speaker 1 (27:06):
Patty, there's so much that we need to talk about.
We can go on for days and days about this.
Let's just give your information, tell people to call and
get the information that they need to get started with
this system.

Speaker 4 (27:19):
Yeah, please just reach out to Heart for Seniors. The
number is five one three four four four twenty thirteen,
or go to Heart the number four seniors dot org
and email us directly from there, message us and we
will get back with you. And more importantly, we will
help and we will get you connected to alert response

(27:39):
technology and even more important, we will make sure that
you have the best skincare dressings that won't cause more
pain or harm to either yourself or your loved ones.
We look forward to being that hub and being there
for you to get educated and get you answers.

Speaker 1 (27:56):
Patti, thank you for what you do. Roger, brilliant stuff.

Speaker 3 (27:59):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (28:00):
I'm I'm glad I got to meet you. I'm glad
that people there are people like you that see a
problem and fix it and dedicate themselves and their own
money to make it happen. So thank you, thank you
all right. The website is Heartforseniors dot org. Find out
more about this emerging technology and all the work that

(28:20):
Roger King, the CEO of Biolin Systems Technology, and Patti Scott,
the co founder of Heartforreseniors dot org, what they're doing
for the disabled and the elderly in our community. If
you've got any questions, comments or suggestions, just shoot me
an email. Iheartsinsey with an I at iHeartMedia dot com.
Hope to see you here next week.

Speaker 2 (28:40):
Iheartsinsey is a production of iHeartMedia, Cincinnati,