Last week, Healthsense announced a partnership with Verizon to bring cost-effective wellness and health monitoring services to senior-living communities across the nation. The new services will be installed and managed by Healthsense, a national leader in home healthcare solutions, and run over Verizon's fiber-optic broadband network, FiOS. In addition, Healthsense will run the services over its private high-speed Wi-Fi network, providing additional security to ease the fear that some seniors face when it comes to technology-related health solutions...

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As the number of Americans 65 and older increases, existing continuing care retirement and other congregate living communities will face many challenges. Not only will these communities be strained by the sheer number of older Americans, they will also be faced with caring for a generation with a very high standard of living...

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Healthsense aging services technology solutions are designed to meet the needs of the entire care continuum. The fully integrated solutions increase independence and improve quality of life for older adults and also enhance communities by lowering the cost of care and by improving the experiences of older adults, families and caregivers...

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Imagine your mother, father, sibling or friend is aging, frail and/or ill. Your loved one lives alone and may proclaim a proud independence. No way are they going into a nursing home or some other assisted living facility. You feel obligated to care for them...

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New procedure codes for Personal Emergency Response Services (PERS) and new process for authorizing Specialized Supplies and Equipment for Waiver and Alternative Care Programs...

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Healthsense, a technology company based just outside Minneapolis, uses wireless sensors to provide an early warning system for health problems among the elderly or frail. The sensors send out an alert when they detect trouble - a fall, for example, or a significant change in sleep patterns. Demand for this kind of innovation is soaring, and companies are responding with a host of new products that can make care less costly and more effective...

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A couple of summers ago, when my wife and I were visiting my parents, we noticed they had a large number of messages stored on their answering machine. They wanted to save some, it turned out, but not others. "Our machine won't do that," my Dad said -- whereupon my wife leaned over, hit one button a couple of times and got rid of the messages my parents wanted to delete. It was a sitcom moment, but it also typified how people of different generations handle technology...

Scripps further explored the value of monitoring technology in dementia care using the Healthsense eNeighbor system (www.healthsense.com) over a period of 6 months. Ultimately, the research concluded that while integration challenges related to installation and maintenance exist, these technologies "have the capacity to provide and support an integrated infrastructure for caregiving in the homes of persons with dementia"...

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Brian Bischoff of Healthsense, Inc. has developed a system for monitoring the activity of an individual thereby helping them maintain their independence as they grow older. Bischoff's technology monitors a person's activity using multiple sensors, therby eliminating the need for any data input from the individual...

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As we continue to live longer the number of elderly people who live on their own is expected to increase. Now technology is helping the older set get the kind of care at home that they need--while maintaining the independence they want. The eNeighbor wireless sensor is just one of many that can be used throughout your home to chart your daily activities. Contact, motion and other sensors keep track of whether you're making the rounds like using the bathroom or even getting into bed. If the sensors detect you aren't up and about as you should be, an alert is sent to a central monitoring system. It triggers a check up call to your home and if you don't answer, it calls other responders on your list...

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Charles Marriott, who is 73 and has emphysema, says he wound up in a nursing home after a drug problem got the better of the relative who was caring for him. He hated the 15 months he spent there and gladly grabbed a chance to move into an apartment of his own. So it doesn't bother him a bit that the place he's lived in since Jan. 14, NewCourtland Square in Germantown, uses machines to monitor practically every move he makes - all in the interest of making sure he's safe. And it's the sort of setup that helps make achievable a goal of the state and federal governments: moving healthier people out of expensive nursing home care and into independent-living situations...

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Increasingly, many older people who live alone are not truely alone. They are being watched by a flurry of new technologies designed to enable them to live independently and avoid expensive trips to the emergency room or nusing homes. Bertha Branch, 78, discovered the power of a system called eNeighbor when she fell to the floor of her Philadelphia apartment late one night without her emergency alert pendant and could not phone for help...

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For those of you in and around this industry, this is very cool. Today's NY Times has a lengthy front page feature by Leland called "Sensors Help to Keep the Elderly Safe, and Living Independently at Home." Give it a read. It includes mention of Healthsense eNeighbor™, Meridian Health, Quiet Care, Jitterbug -- and a number of seniors who are happy to be alive and still living on their own. These vendors hopefully all get a boost from such broad-based publicity...

Many not-for-profit senior living organizations seem to be managing just fine despite the economy. Others are holding their breath, waiting for the (inevitable) economic recovery. But some are in distress or hanging on by a thread-making them ripe for acquisition or affiliation. The credit markets, which have floundered in the last weeks and months, may be at last approaching some state of normalcy with regard to seniors housing...

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Bertha Branch, 78, discovered the power of a system called eNeighbor when she fell to the floor of her Philadelphia apartment late one night without her emergency-alert pendant and could not phone for help. A wireless sensor under Branch's bed detected that she had gotten up. Motion detectors in her bedroom and bathroom registered that she had not left the area in her usual pattern, and relayed that information to a central monitoring system, prompting a call to her telephone to ask if she was all right. When she did not answer, that incited more calls...

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Sensors keep track of just about everything Shirley Player does in her apartment, but she's not worried that Big Brother is watching. Far from it. "I feel very safe with it," Player said. "It's nice to know you're being watched." Player is one of 68 residents of the Masonicare retirement community participating in a study that aims to determine whether keeping a technological eye on seniors can help them live longer independently in their own homes...

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Beginning in July 2006, NewCourtland began using advanced technologies from HealthSense (www.healthsense.com) and other vendors in resident's homes. These include bed sensors, refrigerator/stove sensors and general motion detectors. Currently the HealthSense eNeighbor technology is in place at several of the NewCourtland LIFE and affordable senior housing units and has allowed NewCourtland technicians to be proactive in monitoring care by providing accurate alerts of key activities of daily living...

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Understanding seniors' attitudes toward technology - and, in particular, their willingness to adopt technological solutions that can help them remain independent longer - presents a significant challenge to the aging services industry. Until now, only limited information regarding the practical impact of remote monitoring systems on the elderly has been available. A newly completed research study reports an overwhelmingly positive attitude toward remote monitoring technology among seniors who use it and live with it on a daily basis...

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Vice Magazine

(Note--a view from a younger crowd)

Saturday morning. Shagged out after another hectic week of bingo and daytime TV, you opt for a little lie-in. Ten, eleven, eleven thirty, eleven thirty-five... Soon, your bed notices that you haven't got up. "What's going on?" it thinks. It leaps to the obvious conclusion that you are dying/dead/in some peril. Your bed calls for back up. Within the hour, nurses are knocking on your front door... Ding-dong: welcome to the future that's already here...

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Understanding seniors' attitudes toward technology--and, in particular, their willingness to adopt technological solutions that can help them remain independent longer--presents a significant challenge to the aging services industry. Until recently, limited information regarding the practical impact of remote monitoring systems on the elderly has been available. A recent study, however, has yielded new data about this technology...

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Preconceived notions about aging and retirement are quickly vanishing as Baby Boomers catapult into their "golden years" -- a latte in one hand and a tennis racket in the other. For the generation who boldly declared they would "never get old," only the most sophisticated and technologically savvy innovations can hope to capture their interest...

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Every morning, motion sensors track Joyce Denning as she rises from bed, goes into the bathroom, opens the refrigerator, moves around the living room and strolls out her apartment door. A computer checks those movements against the 78-year-old's daily routines and alerts nursing staff when something seems out of the ordinary -- like too many trips to the bathroom or restlessness in bed or no motion at all...

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Like a silent guardian, technology from a Mendota Heights-based business offers seniors safety and independence as they age. Healthsense Inc. provides the eNeighbor system, which registered nurse Julie Bischoff said helps automatically detect whether or not a person needs help. The system got its start in 2003 from a partnership with National Institute of Aging, which Bischoff said was looking for information about helping rural seniors age in place...

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Every morning John and Virginia log on to their computer. They are not reading e-mail but instead checking up on Virginia's 80-year old mother, Louise, who lives across town, alone. By visiting a designated Web page, John and Virginia can tell exactly when Louise got up this morning, "Within five minutes we can know if my mother has been up to the bathroom in the night, or if she has fallen," says Virginia, staring at the computer screen...

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Smart high-tech products, either on sale now or in the research phase, are changing the way Americans cope with the health issues of aging family members. The devices can help people better monitor and treat their chronic diseases, provide quick access to reliable medical information in an emergency, and make a private residence safe enough for an older person to continue living there...

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We've all seen those late-night commercials advertising pendants our aging parents can use to call for help. However, sometimes grandma forgets to wear the pendant. Even if she is wearing it, "Eighty percent of the time, the elderly person in an emergency is confused or "semiconscious" and may not be able to do something as simple as press a button to call for help," says Bryan Fuhr, principal of Red Wing Technologies, a small market-development consulting company specializing in sensors and automation...

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Red Wing Technologies Inc. is developing sensor-based information technologies to monitor the daily activities of patients who have suffered traumatic brain injuries. The Minneapolis-based vendor has received a $750,000 grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The goal of the project is to wire a person's living quarters to unobtrusively track their movement to determine if they are physically active and doing basic activities...

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Red Wing Technologies, Inc. which is developing a monitoring system to safeguard people living alone from falls and other accidents, received a $750,000 grant to continue its work. The grant, from the National Institutes of Health, will allow Red Wing to finish the design phase on its "electronic concerned neighbor" and prepare a field test for the technology. The "eNeighbor" system is intended to help watch people who live alone and raise an alert if they get into trouble, i.e. a fall, sudden health problem or the like...

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Grim truth: for the elderly who live alone, there are things that seem worse than death. One is a lingering end after some crisis leaves them unable to call for help. Another is that loved ones will find them several days after that end has come. For their families, there is the fear of an injury or death that could have been prevented if they'd insisted on a move to a care facility...

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Numerous small, wireless sensors placed in strategic living areas, including on the bed, on the toilet and in the kitchen, allow staff at NewCourtland Elder Services in Philadelphia to continually monitor residents without intruding on their privacy. "Because the 24-hour monitoring system helps us understand the living patterns of our residents, we are able to better utilize our staff and prevent undesirable events such as falls or hospitalizations," says Kim Brooks...

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Today, motion sensors can monitor the comings and goings of elderly Americans so they can live safely and independently in their own homes. One day soon, a cellular telephone will detect any new quaver in the voice, and a cuff link will notice any worrisome change of gait. Eventually a talking computer screen will tell the elderly whether they should take an aspirin for a headache, considering their 12 or 16 or 20 other medications. Yesterday's science fiction is tomorrow's assisted living, say prognosticators now watching 77 million baby boomers grow old...

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Families in Ohio and Pennsylvania who use Healthsense's state-of-the-art eNeighbor® remote monitoring to help care for elderly relatives with Alzheimer's disease or dementia say the technology has enabled them to keep their loved ones safe at home for longer and delay placing them permanently in secured memory care units. They also credit the Healthsense technology with improving their own quality of life by helping relieve the stress and strain of tending to seniors with Alzheimer's or dementia...

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Healthsense's eNeighbor remote monitoring system aims to help those taking care of friends and family with Alzheimer's disease or dementia. Developed with grants from the National Institutes of Aging (NIA) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Healthsense's eNeighbor system is based on battery-operated WiFi sensors that include pressure sensors in beds to detect when a resident gets in or out of bed; motion detectors on walls to detect movement or inactivity; toilet sensors to monitor toilet usage; contact sensors...

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As part of awareness initiatives for World Alzheimer's Day today, Alzheimer's Disease International released a report that estimates that "over the next 20 years, the numbers of people with dementia are anticipated to increase by 40 percent in Europe, 63 percent in North America, 77 percent in the southern Latin America ... and 89 percent in the developed Asia Pacific countries." By next year some 35.6 million people worldwide will be living with dementia, and the figure is expected to hit 65.7 million by 2030 and 115.4 million by 2050...

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The Kingsway Retirement Living community is a unique and expansive German-style center consisting of 36 apartments of assisted living -- 14 with memory care services, and 45 apartments for adults age 55 and older. When Kingsway opened in June of 2008, it was fully equipped with integrated aging services technologies provided through Healthsense...

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As the Alzheimer's spreads, healthcare companies are developing wireless technologies to help caregivers look after their charges. The technologies monitor people with Alzheimer's to make sure they're not in trouble, with a particular focus on making sure that patients don't wander off. Finding wandering Alzheiemer's patients quickly is important. For those not found within 24 hours, up to half suffer serious injury or death. And a patient who wanders once will likely do it again; 70% of patients who wander do so repeatedly...

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Brian Bischoff, co-founder and CEO, Healthsense, talks about the products and services that his company offers and which specific markets can benefit from its solutions. He explains the technology behind the company's eNeighbor Remote Monitoring system and how it helps caregivers to monitor a patient's habits as well as alert them in the event of changing conditions...

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It's like a scene from Big Brother. An elderly woman, who hasn't seen another living soul in days, shuffles across the room and sits in front of the television. An hour or two later, she goes to make a cup of tea, but forgets why she got up. She does this three times in a row before deciding to take a nap...

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Increasing numbers of the elderly and physically impaired find it necessary to move from their homes to assisted-living or retirement homes and then to skilled nursing facilities. The forced transition of individuals to escalated levels of care results in a 2- to 4-time increase in healthcare costs and a reduction in quality of life...

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