September 27, 2024 • 20 mins
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In this episode, I promise to unlock the potential of assistive technologies that transform daily living for older adults. From my heartfelt personal experiences, I showcase an array of smart gadgets—from voice-activated assistants like Alexa and Google Home to automated vacuum cleaners such as the Shark vacuum, perfect for pet lovers.
We'll delve into the security perks of the Ring doorbell with camera capabilities and the convenience of smart home systems, all designed to enhance both safety and peace of mind.
But that's not all. Learn how advanced health and safety devices can be game-changers—smartwatches that track vital signs and medical alert systems that offer discreet protection.
Hear about innovative solutions like fall detection lamps and smart walking aids that redefine mobility. We'll also discuss the importance of creating an accessible home environment with adaptive devices. I encourage you to dive deeper by accessing the comprehensive PDF linked in our show notes, and don’t forget to subscribe to stay updated with our latest episodes and YouTube content!
Click Here For A PDF of a List of Assistive Devices
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi everyone, welcome back.
I'm Esther Kane, your host forthe Aging in Place Directory
podcast, episode number 19.
Today I wanted to talk aboutsome of the amazing products
assistive technology basicallythat can really help to make
life a lot easier and safer.
(00:22):
Make life a lot easier andsafer.
I personally love these gadgets.
They have contributed so muchto my life and they give me the
time to do the work, like thispodcast and newsletter, and
manage the aging in placedirectorycom and a plethora of
other websites as well, and alsogives me leisure time, you know
(00:43):
, to spend time with my friends.
So the products that I use, theassistive technology products
that I use that I very much loveare the voice activated devices
, such as Alexa and Google Home.
They help me to, you know, makeit easy to access my calendar,
to make phone phone calls, to dovideo calls, to control my
(01:06):
lights, my television you know,even my alarm system.
Everything can a lot of thingscan go through.
That makes it much easier.
And also my phone my smartphonealso has can control just about
everything.
It seems like.
And what I like about it alsois that I keep the location tab,
(01:31):
the location feature, on it, sothat my friends and family.
If I go missing, they can atleast find my phone.
Hopefully I'll be attached toit as well, so it is a security
feature for me as well.
Another product that I like verymuch are the automated vacuum
(01:57):
cleaners, and I know a lot ofpeople I know are familiar with
Roomba, but I I tend to use Iuse the Shark vacuum.
I have one upstairs and onedownstairs, and the reason that
I chose the Shark was becausethe Roomba has a brush and that
brush was constantly gettingcaught with cat hair I have two
(02:18):
cats and it would constantly becaught up with that whereas the
Shark product has a plasticblade instead of a brush, so the
hair doesn't get caught up inthat anywhere near as much so,
and both of them work, you know,amazingly well.
They go to a station, emptythemselves out, and I can even
control them with my cell phone,which is quite amazing.
(02:41):
But anyway, those are, thoseare the main problems.
Oh, and also I use the ringdoorbell with the camera.
It's amazing.
I mean, just a few nights ago,at almost nine o'clock at night,
my doorbell rang.
Of course it was dark, you knowwhy would somebody be ringing
my doorbell at nine?
And then I could just.
I just pulled up the camera onmy phone and I saw that it was
(03:04):
four men.
I could just.
I just pulled up the camera onmy phone and I saw that it was
four men standing outside.
Well, I wasn't going to openthe door four men at 9 pm, so I
could at least speak to them viathe the camera and, you know,
find out, they were justsoliciting at 9 pm, can you
imagine, anyway?
So those are the assistive.
(03:25):
Those are the tools that I tendto use the most, and I very much
am grateful for each and everysingle one of them.
They have made my life a loteasier.
Of course, I would love to havethe Jetsons, rosie the robot,
but I don't know that that'sgoing to happen in my lifetime.
I wish it would, but there's somany amazing assistive
(03:47):
technology products that you canuse and you may not be aware of
.
So, attached to this podcast orYouTube video, whichever one
you're watching, is on orlistening to, I'm going to have
a link to a PDF that lists theindividual products themselves.
So, but in this podcast therelike over, I think, 200 of them
(04:11):
on here.
So obviously that would be avery long podcast and not too
exciting.
So I'm going to go ahead andjust speak about them generally
here, and then you can click onto the PDF to look for any
products that you may beinterested in.
So obviously, smart hometechnologies and home automation
(04:32):
systems are the buzzwords thesedays, and I have the feeling
that in the not too far awayfuture, more and more homes will
be automatically wired orcreated with these built-in,
especially as older adults,especially as the population
continues to grow older it's10,000 people a day, turning 65
(04:56):
for many years to come so whynot go ahead and incorporate all
of those things into a home?
It certainly makes it moresellable, more value in the home
.
But some of the home automationsystems that you may or may not
be aware of are obviouslylighting control, and you can
(05:18):
put those on timers.
You can also put them onto avoice-activated device, have an
app on your phone and you cancontrol the light from wherever
you are.
There's nothing more annoyingthan crawling into bed on the
second floor when you realizewait a minute, I don't think I
turned off the kitchen light oryou know whatever.
(05:41):
I have to go back down, turn itoff, come back up.
This way you can just check tosee if you've turned it off and
control it on your phone.
This is especially true foranyone that may have some
mobility issues or balanceissues or just doesn't have the
stamina to to constantly do that.
(06:01):
Going up and down temperatureregulation is also another one.
Oh, that's.
Another one that I use is thering yeah, the, the ring
thermometer, and what I loveabout that is that I can set it
for the heat and the cool, so itgoes to a certain temperature
when the house gets warm andthen it goes to a certain
(06:22):
temperature when the house getscold, so I really never even
have to touch it.
Once it's set, then it justautomatically either turns on
the AC, or the AC is on, or thecentral heat.
So that part is actually quitelovely.
Security cameras are also veryimportant to have throughout
your house, especially outside.
You want to have them by yourgarage.
(06:45):
I have one on the outside ofthe garage and I also have one
on the inside of the garage justin case, for whatever reason,
something happened or someonehappened to come in through the
garage.
I wouldn't know it.
It's a nice way to get an alertand they're very inexpensive
these days and a lot of themoperate on Wi-Fi, you can
(07:05):
recharge them.
So what I do is the first dayof the month I tend to take all
my rechargeable items mysecurity cameras, my batteries,
my car battery charger, anythingthat I have that is
rechargeable.
I tend to charge them all onthe first day of the month and
that way I know they're alwayscharged.
(07:26):
So you can certainly set up aschedule like that makes it much
easier.
So the voice-activatedassistants that I talked about
before, like Amazon's Alexa orGoogle Home, those are amazing.
You can set reminders formedications, for appointments,
you know, for your washingmachine, for the wash to get
(07:47):
done.
You know parties to attend,anything at all.
You can control the devices,smart home devices.
You make hands-free phone calls, which I do that a lot.
You can provide, getinformation from them,
entertainment.
There's a lot of things thatyou can do.
Now I will say that the Alexadevices have a lot more skills.
(08:10):
They call them skills, whichare basically features.
They have a skill where, onceyou turn it on, it can detect if
glass breaks, and that's good.
If someone is trying to breakin through your you know glass
window, it will.
It will alert you.
It can.
I'm not sure if you can set itup that it will then call 9-1-1,
(08:30):
but it would definitely willalert you.
Google home is better formaking searches, so if you were
to ask Google Home a question,more than likely it will give
you the correct answer.
If you ask Alexa, that samequestion, you may probably get.
I don't know how to answer that, and the reason is is because
(08:53):
Google Home is working off theGoogle search engine, which is
the largest search engine on theplanet but think of it as the
largest library and Alexa isworking off the Bing search
engine, which is a much smallerlibrary, so it doesn't have all
the information that is onGoogle.
The other type of products thatI think are so amazing as far as
(09:15):
technology goes are the healthand safety devices.
These days, you know prettysoon it's going to get to the
point where you'll be able towear something, and I think for
some devices it's already there.
Blood pressure you'll have awatch that can record your blood
pressure and automatically sendit to your physician.
Diabetic your sugar levelsautomatically send it to your
(09:38):
physician.
These types of medical alertdevices used to be where you
know.
You would wear this largependant around your neck and it
was just like screaming.
Yes, I'm an old person, I needthis medical alert device, but
nowadays they're getting muchbetter.
Need this medical alert device,but nowadays they're getting
(09:59):
much better.
They come in the form ofwatches, gps trackers, so you
can even put in your shoes andyour purse, your backpack.
They have a lot of.
Them have two-way communication, you know, with monitoring
centers.
They have this wonderful littlenecklace I can't remember the
name of it but I'll put a linkto it in the description and the
(10:20):
notes for the podcast but theyhave a lot of just nice tool,
nice equipment it doesn't looklike equipment and medical alert
system, which I think is soamazing.
Health monitoring devices.
Health monitoring devices,again, check your heart rate,
(10:44):
your blood pressure, your sleeppatterns, level of physical
activities.
If you wear a smartwatch, asmartwatch will usually tell you
it's been 20 minutes.
Get up.
Some even offer ECG featuresand fall detection.
I know Apple is very good aboutfall detection, which is, which
is great, another falldetection product you may want
to consider.
It's not a wearable, it's anoverhead lamp, it's a ceiling
(11:05):
lamp and it's called Nobi N-O-Bas in boy I and the Nobi lamp is
beautiful because it's just asimple light that sits on your
ceiling and it has a falldetection so it can detect if
you've fallen in the area underthe lamp.
Obviously it goes out.
It's not just directlyunderneath, it can detect a
(11:29):
certain radius around the lamp.
But I think that's an ingeniousproduct and something that a
lot of I would think that a lotof senior assisted living places
would want to incorporate thatinto their homes, into their
apartments.
Medication management systemsare another technology tool that
(11:49):
has come around and definitelyhas gotten much, much better.
These products can dispensemedications at certain times,
they set off alarms, they canprovide reminders, send texts to
your phone and even send textsto family caregivers so in case
they need to call and remind youmom, did you take your pill,
(12:11):
just in case maybe you havetrouble hearing or whatever the
issue is, and they this willthen track medication adherence,
which again could be somethingthat is sent to the physician to
let them know whether or notyou are adhering to the
medication.
Because if you're not, what isthe issue?
Is that a cognitive issue?
(12:31):
Are you able to take care ofyourself?
Because if you can't take,can't recall to take the
medication on time, perhaps itmight be time to get some you
know, some help from the outside.
Another one of the amazingthings that's coming out now are
smart walking aids.
One of the newest things that'scome out lately is a product
(12:53):
called gozen.
It's g-o--Z-E-N, and what Ilove about this product is that
it's a mashup between a walkerand a wheelchair and it does
multiple things.
Not only does it turn on a dime, but it also raises up.
So if you are using it as awheelchair, be it temporarily or
(13:16):
permanently, you can push abutton and the seat will pop up.
That way, you are at eye levelwith whomever it is that you are
speaking with, and you can useit as a wheelchair at that
height.
So can you imagine having thatat the grocery store, where you
can just raise it to getsomething from the top shelf or
(13:38):
higher shelf and then lower itback down to keep on going, or
you can stay up there, I guess.
But what I love about it isthat if you are someone that has
a lot of fatigue or difficultywalking, so occasionally needs a
wheelchair or a seat, but alsohas the the walker also uses a
(13:59):
walker, then you can stand upand because the wheelchair is
behind you and the armrests arethere off to your side, then you
can use it.
You're belted into the Gozineand then you can use it as a
walker with the seat behind you.
So I love that.
It promotes exercise, itpromotes mobility and it just
(14:20):
makes it so much easier anduser-friendly for anyone who
needs that type of equipment.
But there's also other smartwalking aids.
There are canes and walkersthat can detect an obstacle in
case you have low vision, thennavigation assistance, gps
features, health monitoringfeatures.
There's so many amazingfeatures that a lot of the
(14:44):
advanced canes and walkers arecurrently incorporating another
great technology.
Our products are stair lifts,ramp and residential elevators.
These obviously make it easierto navigate multi-level homes
and ensuring that all areas ofthe home are as accessible as
(15:07):
possible.
So another one are electricwheelchairs and scooters.
These provide enhanced mobility, not only for outdoor but for
indoor, and it allows olderadults to be as independent and
active as possible.
So another area wheretechnology is working amazing is
(15:33):
communication and entertainment.
Amazing is communication andentertainment.
So with communication, one ofthe main products that has been
developing a lot of features arehearing aids.
Today's modern hearing aids arenot just hearing aids, they're
also Bluetooth enabled so youcan connect them to your phone.
(15:54):
You can listen to music.
You can use them as thelistening device and talking
them to your phone.
You can listen to music.
You can use them as thelistening device and talking
device for your phone.
They also are GPS enabled soyour family members can track
you in case you tend to get lost, or just use it as a security
type of feature.
(16:15):
But in addition to hearing aids,there's the smartphones.
Some of them are getting madewith large buttons, easy to read
buttons, a video callingsystems.
You know, sort of like a zoomkind of thing built into the
phone, and there's so manyfeatures that a phone can do.
And I think that in the nextfive to ten years so many apps
(16:39):
are going to be coming outtargeting not only older adults
and what they need and want, butalso families who have aging
parents, aging parents.
And then there's, of course,the entertainment systems.
You know all the amazingremotes that do everything.
(17:00):
Of course, if you can bringeverything down to one remote,
that would be much, much easier.
But then there's e-readers andlike the Kindle, where you can
adjust the text size and readyour books and magazines, and
then, of course, audiodescription services for anyone
who's visually impaired, andyeah, and then also the visual
(17:26):
services for anyone that ishearing impaired.
There are so many amazingproducts and then, you know, I'm
not even this has even broughtup the issue of the driverless
car.
At some point that will be aviable product that is on our
roads and I know some people arevery and be safe, because can
(17:48):
you imagine, you know, if youare simply an unsafe driver
because of your age ordisability of some kind, being
able to still have thatindependence with a car to go
(18:10):
anywhere or do anything?
It's quite amazing.
I think the next 10 or 20 yearsare going to bring about an
absolute revolution of newproducts, especially since the
last couple of years has reallyopened up Pandora's box for
artificial intelligence.
That has cleared the way for somany new technologies to be
(18:33):
created.
It is scary, it's true, butanytime there's change, anytime
there's something new comingaround the horizon, it's always
a little frightening.
It's always good and bad toeverything, but a lot of these
adaptive devices can certainlymake your life easier and safer
and, at the end of the day,that's what we're really
(18:55):
concerned about and that's whatthis podcast is for.
All right, so I'm going to havea link to the pdf of some of
the exact products that you canlook into that can help you to
create an easy and safe home foryourself and or your loved ones
.
All right, have a great day.
Don't forget to subscribe toour podcast, our YouTube channel
(19:18):
, and I will see you in the nextpodcast.
Thank you, bye.
Hi everyone, welcome back.
I'm Esther Kane, your host forthe Aging in Place Directory
podcast, episode number 19.
Today I wanted to talk aboutsome of the amazing products
assistive technology basicallythat can really help to make
life a lot easier and safer.
(00:22):
Make life a lot easier andsafer.
I personally love these gadgets.
They have contributed so muchto my life and they give me the
time to do the work, like thispodcast and newsletter, and
manage the aging in placedirectorycom and a plethora of
other websites as well, and alsogives me leisure time, you know
(00:43):
, to spend time with my friends.
So the products that I use, theassistive technology products
that I use that I very much loveare the voice activated devices
, such as Alexa and Google Home.
They help me to, you know, makeit easy to access my calendar,
to make phone phone calls, to dovideo calls, to control my
(01:06):
lights, my television you know,even my alarm system.
Everything can a lot of thingscan go through.
That makes it much easier.
And also my phone my smartphonealso has can control just about
everything.
It seems like.
And what I like about it alsois that I keep the location tab,
(01:31):
the location feature, on it, sothat my friends and family.
If I go missing, they can atleast find my phone.
Hopefully I'll be attached toit as well, so it is a security
feature for me as well.
Another product that I like verymuch are the automated vacuum
(01:57):
cleaners, and I know a lot ofpeople I know are familiar with
Roomba, but I I tend to use Iuse the Shark vacuum.
I have one upstairs and onedownstairs, and the reason that
I chose the Shark was becausethe Roomba has a brush and that
brush was constantly gettingcaught with cat hair I have two
(02:18):
cats and it would constantly becaught up with that whereas the
Shark product has a plasticblade instead of a brush, so the
hair doesn't get caught up inthat anywhere near as much so,
and both of them work, you know,amazingly well.
They go to a station, emptythemselves out, and I can even
control them with my cell phone,which is quite amazing.
(02:41):
But anyway, those are, thoseare the main problems.
Oh, and also I use the ringdoorbell with the camera.
It's amazing.
I mean, just a few nights ago,at almost nine o'clock at night,
my doorbell rang.
Of course it was dark, you knowwhy would somebody be ringing
my doorbell at nine?
And then I could just.
I just pulled up the camera onmy phone and I saw that it was
(03:04):
four men.
I could just.
I just pulled up the camera onmy phone and I saw that it was
four men standing outside.
Well, I wasn't going to openthe door four men at 9 pm, so I
could at least speak to them viathe the camera and, you know,
find out, they were justsoliciting at 9 pm, can you
imagine, anyway?
So those are the assistive.
(03:25):
Those are the tools that I tendto use the most, and I very much
am grateful for each and everysingle one of them.
They have made my life a loteasier.
Of course, I would love to havethe Jetsons, rosie the robot,
but I don't know that that'sgoing to happen in my lifetime.
I wish it would, but there's somany amazing assistive
(03:47):
technology products that you canuse and you may not be aware of
.
So, attached to this podcast orYouTube video, whichever one
you're watching, is on orlistening to, I'm going to have
a link to a PDF that lists theindividual products themselves.
So, but in this podcast therelike over, I think, 200 of them
(04:11):
on here.
So obviously that would be avery long podcast and not too
exciting.
So I'm going to go ahead andjust speak about them generally
here, and then you can click onto the PDF to look for any
products that you may beinterested in.
So obviously, smart hometechnologies and home automation
(04:32):
systems are the buzzwords thesedays, and I have the feeling
that in the not too far awayfuture, more and more homes will
be automatically wired orcreated with these built-in,
especially as older adults,especially as the population
continues to grow older it's10,000 people a day, turning 65
(04:56):
for many years to come so whynot go ahead and incorporate all
of those things into a home?
It certainly makes it moresellable, more value in the home
.
But some of the home automationsystems that you may or may not
be aware of are obviouslylighting control, and you can
(05:18):
put those on timers.
You can also put them onto avoice-activated device, have an
app on your phone and you cancontrol the light from wherever
you are.
There's nothing more annoyingthan crawling into bed on the
second floor when you realizewait a minute, I don't think I
turned off the kitchen light oryou know whatever.
(05:41):
I have to go back down, turn itoff, come back up.
This way you can just check tosee if you've turned it off and
control it on your phone.
This is especially true foranyone that may have some
mobility issues or balanceissues or just doesn't have the
stamina to to constantly do that.
(06:01):
Going up and down temperatureregulation is also another one.
Oh, that's.
Another one that I use is thering yeah, the, the ring
thermometer, and what I loveabout that is that I can set it
for the heat and the cool, so itgoes to a certain temperature
when the house gets warm andthen it goes to a certain
(06:22):
temperature when the house getscold, so I really never even
have to touch it.
Once it's set, then it justautomatically either turns on
the AC, or the AC is on, or thecentral heat.
So that part is actually quitelovely.
Security cameras are also veryimportant to have throughout
your house, especially outside.
You want to have them by yourgarage.
(06:45):
I have one on the outside ofthe garage and I also have one
on the inside of the garage justin case, for whatever reason,
something happened or someonehappened to come in through the
garage.
I wouldn't know it.
It's a nice way to get an alertand they're very inexpensive
these days and a lot of themoperate on Wi-Fi, you can
(07:05):
recharge them.
So what I do is the first dayof the month I tend to take all
my rechargeable items mysecurity cameras, my batteries,
my car battery charger, anythingthat I have that is
rechargeable.
I tend to charge them all onthe first day of the month and
that way I know they're alwayscharged.
(07:26):
So you can certainly set up aschedule like that makes it much
easier.
So the voice-activatedassistants that I talked about
before, like Amazon's Alexa orGoogle Home, those are amazing.
You can set reminders formedications, for appointments,
you know, for your washingmachine, for the wash to get
(07:47):
done.
You know parties to attend,anything at all.
You can control the devices,smart home devices.
You make hands-free phone calls, which I do that a lot.
You can provide, getinformation from them,
entertainment.
There's a lot of things thatyou can do.
Now I will say that the Alexadevices have a lot more skills.
(08:10):
They call them skills, whichare basically features.
They have a skill where, onceyou turn it on, it can detect if
glass breaks, and that's good.
If someone is trying to breakin through your you know glass
window, it will.
It will alert you.
It can.
I'm not sure if you can set itup that it will then call 9-1-1,
(08:30):
but it would definitely willalert you.
Google home is better formaking searches, so if you were
to ask Google Home a question,more than likely it will give
you the correct answer.
If you ask Alexa, that samequestion, you may probably get.
I don't know how to answer that, and the reason is is because
(08:53):
Google Home is working off theGoogle search engine, which is
the largest search engine on theplanet but think of it as the
largest library and Alexa isworking off the Bing search
engine, which is a much smallerlibrary, so it doesn't have all
the information that is onGoogle.
The other type of products thatI think are so amazing as far as
(09:15):
technology goes are the healthand safety devices.
These days, you know prettysoon it's going to get to the
point where you'll be able towear something, and I think for
some devices it's already there.
Blood pressure you'll have awatch that can record your blood
pressure and automatically sendit to your physician.
Diabetic your sugar levelsautomatically send it to your
(09:38):
physician.
These types of medical alertdevices used to be where you
know.
You would wear this largependant around your neck and it
was just like screaming.
Yes, I'm an old person, I needthis medical alert device, but
nowadays they're getting muchbetter.
Need this medical alert device,but nowadays they're getting
(09:59):
much better.
They come in the form ofwatches, gps trackers, so you
can even put in your shoes andyour purse, your backpack.
They have a lot of.
Them have two-way communication, you know, with monitoring
centers.
They have this wonderful littlenecklace I can't remember the
name of it but I'll put a linkto it in the description and the
(10:20):
notes for the podcast but theyhave a lot of just nice tool,
nice equipment it doesn't looklike equipment and medical alert
system, which I think is soamazing.
Health monitoring devices.
Health monitoring devices,again, check your heart rate,
(10:44):
your blood pressure, your sleeppatterns, level of physical
activities.
If you wear a smartwatch, asmartwatch will usually tell you
it's been 20 minutes.
Get up.
Some even offer ECG featuresand fall detection.
I know Apple is very good aboutfall detection, which is, which
is great, another falldetection product you may want
to consider.
It's not a wearable, it's anoverhead lamp, it's a ceiling
(11:05):
lamp and it's called Nobi N-O-Bas in boy I and the Nobi lamp is
beautiful because it's just asimple light that sits on your
ceiling and it has a falldetection so it can detect if
you've fallen in the area underthe lamp.
Obviously it goes out.
It's not just directlyunderneath, it can detect a
(11:29):
certain radius around the lamp.
But I think that's an ingeniousproduct and something that a
lot of I would think that a lotof senior assisted living places
would want to incorporate thatinto their homes, into their
apartments.
Medication management systemsare another technology tool that
(11:49):
has come around and definitelyhas gotten much, much better.
These products can dispensemedications at certain times,
they set off alarms, they canprovide reminders, send texts to
your phone and even send textsto family caregivers so in case
they need to call and remind youmom, did you take your pill,
(12:11):
just in case maybe you havetrouble hearing or whatever the
issue is, and they this willthen track medication adherence,
which again could be somethingthat is sent to the physician to
let them know whether or notyou are adhering to the
medication.
Because if you're not, what isthe issue?
Is that a cognitive issue?
(12:31):
Are you able to take care ofyourself?
Because if you can't take,can't recall to take the
medication on time, perhaps itmight be time to get some you
know, some help from the outside.
Another one of the amazingthings that's coming out now are
smart walking aids.
One of the newest things that'scome out lately is a product
(12:53):
called gozen.
It's g-o--Z-E-N, and what Ilove about this product is that
it's a mashup between a walkerand a wheelchair and it does
multiple things.
Not only does it turn on a dime, but it also raises up.
So if you are using it as awheelchair, be it temporarily or
(13:16):
permanently, you can push abutton and the seat will pop up.
That way, you are at eye levelwith whomever it is that you are
speaking with, and you can useit as a wheelchair at that
height.
So can you imagine having thatat the grocery store, where you
can just raise it to getsomething from the top shelf or
(13:38):
higher shelf and then lower itback down to keep on going, or
you can stay up there, I guess.
But what I love about it isthat if you are someone that has
a lot of fatigue or difficultywalking, so occasionally needs a
wheelchair or a seat, but alsohas the the walker also uses a
(13:59):
walker, then you can stand upand because the wheelchair is
behind you and the armrests arethere off to your side, then you
can use it.
You're belted into the Gozineand then you can use it as a
walker with the seat behind you.
So I love that.
It promotes exercise, itpromotes mobility and it just
(14:20):
makes it so much easier anduser-friendly for anyone who
needs that type of equipment.
But there's also other smartwalking aids.
There are canes and walkersthat can detect an obstacle in
case you have low vision, thennavigation assistance, gps
features, health monitoringfeatures.
There's so many amazingfeatures that a lot of the
(14:44):
advanced canes and walkers arecurrently incorporating another
great technology.
Our products are stair lifts,ramp and residential elevators.
These obviously make it easierto navigate multi-level homes
and ensuring that all areas ofthe home are as accessible as
(15:07):
possible.
So another one are electricwheelchairs and scooters.
These provide enhanced mobility, not only for outdoor but for
indoor, and it allows olderadults to be as independent and
active as possible.
So another area wheretechnology is working amazing is
(15:33):
communication and entertainment.
Amazing is communication andentertainment.
So with communication, one ofthe main products that has been
developing a lot of features arehearing aids.
Today's modern hearing aids arenot just hearing aids, they're
also Bluetooth enabled so youcan connect them to your phone.
(15:54):
You can listen to music.
You can use them as thelistening device and talking
them to your phone.
You can listen to music.
You can use them as thelistening device and talking
device for your phone.
They also are GPS enabled soyour family members can track
you in case you tend to get lost, or just use it as a security
type of feature.
(16:15):
But in addition to hearing aids,there's the smartphones.
Some of them are getting madewith large buttons, easy to read
buttons, a video callingsystems.
You know, sort of like a zoomkind of thing built into the
phone, and there's so manyfeatures that a phone can do.
And I think that in the nextfive to ten years so many apps
(16:39):
are going to be coming outtargeting not only older adults
and what they need and want, butalso families who have aging
parents, aging parents.
And then there's, of course,the entertainment systems.
You know all the amazingremotes that do everything.
(17:00):
Of course, if you can bringeverything down to one remote,
that would be much, much easier.
But then there's e-readers andlike the Kindle, where you can
adjust the text size and readyour books and magazines, and
then, of course, audiodescription services for anyone
who's visually impaired, andyeah, and then also the visual
(17:26):
services for anyone that ishearing impaired.
There are so many amazingproducts and then, you know, I'm
not even this has even broughtup the issue of the driverless
car.
At some point that will be aviable product that is on our
roads and I know some people arevery and be safe, because can
(17:48):
you imagine, you know, if youare simply an unsafe driver
because of your age ordisability of some kind, being
able to still have thatindependence with a car to go
(18:10):
anywhere or do anything?
It's quite amazing.
I think the next 10 or 20 yearsare going to bring about an
absolute revolution of newproducts, especially since the
last couple of years has reallyopened up Pandora's box for
artificial intelligence.
That has cleared the way for somany new technologies to be
(18:33):
created.
It is scary, it's true, butanytime there's change, anytime
there's something new comingaround the horizon, it's always
a little frightening.
It's always good and bad toeverything, but a lot of these
adaptive devices can certainlymake your life easier and safer
and, at the end of the day,that's what we're really
(18:55):
concerned about and that's whatthis podcast is for.
All right, so I'm going to havea link to the pdf of some of
the exact products that you canlook into that can help you to
create an easy and safe home foryourself and or your loved ones
.
All right, have a great day.
Don't forget to subscribe toour podcast, our YouTube channel
(19:18):
, and I will see you in the nextpodcast.
Thank you, bye.
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