Technology and Caregiving
Can Technology Make Caregiving Easier?
Meet Your Instructors
Dr. Nikosi Darnell @TechySLP
Dr. Rebekah McPherson @techapps
Session Overview
It is no secret that technology is advancing at a rapid pace. The emergence of mobile technologies has demonstrated a significant influence on how we go about our everyday lives. From smartphones, smartwatches, water fountains with bottle stations, thermal USB chargers, virtual assistants, educational technologies, self driving cars, telemedicine, robotic-assisted surgeries, telepractice, and much more!
These examples highlight some of the emerging technologies that have and continue to influence our society. There is not a sector of our society that has not been influenced by these technological advancements, even that of caregiving for persons with Alzheimer's disease. The development of technological tools for enhancing the quality of life for families and their loved ones presenting with a progressive neurological disorder, such as Alzheimer's, is being recognized as a growing demand for the baby boom population.
Responsively, we as practitioners need to have an increasing awareness of how we can help our clients effectively leverage technologies for their optimal benefit. In integrating a collaborative approach to caregiving, we can assist clients in identifying technological resources, as appropriate, that provide a supportive framework for meeting their individualized needs.
Although caring for someone with Alzheimer's can present with many challenges, especially as the disease process progresses, we are here to help caregivers identify potential technological resources that can assist in maintaining an improved quality of life for their clients and loved ones.
project catalyst
The National Alliance for Caregiving
Non-profit coalition of national organizations - 1996
Alliance Members:
- Grassroots Organizations
- Professional Associations
- Service Organizations
- Disease-Specific Organizations
- Government Agencies
- Corporations
Organization Focus: To improve quality of life for families and their care recipients through research, innovation and advocacy by:
- Conducting Research
- Policy Analysis
- Developing National Best-Practice Programs
- Increasing Public Awareness of Family Caregiving Issues
Research Findings
catalyzing tech (2014)
Adler & Mehta (2014). Catalyzing Technology to Support Family Caregiving. National Alliance for Caregiving.
"The vast majority of healthcare is actually provided by families, not by healthcare professionals"
Considerations:
1. Approximately 40-million caregivers.
2. Provide emotional support, helping with household tasks, 24/7 care, medical care.
3. Social issue as caregiving can be stressful, time consuming, etc.
4. Impact physical & mental health, financial & social situations, & economic productivity.
Expert Round Table:
*Researchers *advocates *designers *entrepreneurs, i.e. Intel, Silicon Valley, Kaiser Permanente, California Healthcare Foundation, Care Innovations, Institute for the Future, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, US Department of Health and Human Services, Center for Aging and Technology, and many more. . .
Exploratory Questions:
*To date, technology has made very modest contributions to supporting caregivers of an aging population:
1. Can technology play a more meaningful role in helping caregivers?
2. How can we accelerate innovation in developing new applications to support caregivers?
Ideas:
1. An "Intelligent Family Care Assistant" to help with day-to-day caregiving by helping to coordinate the family's tasks in the context of the family's other activities.
2. "Wearable technologies" - devices worn on or placed in the body, with sensors and/or human interfaces - to help monitor a person's health and overall condition.
3. Technologies that provide better connections between family caregivers and health professionals, enabling them to work more effectively as a team in providing care.
Recommendations:
1. Create better "concept maps" and use more appropriate language to describe the variation and complexity of caregiving.
2. Continue to collect data about the prevalence, burden, and impact of caregiving and the role of technology.
3. Spur a broad national conversation on caregiving.
4. Develop compelling business cases for employers and healthcare providers to support caregiving.
5. Provide caregiving coaching as an integral component of all solutions.
6. Inspire social conversations about caregiving to encourage more learning and support within families and communities.
Responsible Parties:
- Family Caregivers - support one another; learn from friends & family in social conversations; don't blame yourself
- Caregiver Advocacy Organizations - deeply understand the richness, complexity & universality of caregiving; advocate for whole-system solutions, i.e. coaching
- Caregiver Support Organizations - offer coaching services to help caregivers fully benefit from available technologies; stay current on caregiving technologies
- Employers - support development of concept maps to understand employees caregiving needs & the business impact; direct strategists & consultants to develop business plans
- Healthcare Providers - develop procedures & technologies to more fully engage caregivers, realizing that bi-directional conversation is key to success
project catalyst
Project Catalyst fills a gap in the market by putting the 50-plus consumer at the center of innovation. By conducting consumer research of new and emerging products with the consumer, the program helps inform developers about how their products and services are working to improve the lives of Americans as they age.
Research for Project Catalyst was conducted by HITLAB, which is a healthcare innovation lab that helps leading organizations with the ideation, creation, evaluation, and diffusion of technology-based solutions to improve the quality and accessibility of healthcare worldwide.
Founding Members:
- Pfizer
- United Healthcare
- MedStar Health
- Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
- AARP (American Association of Retired Persons)
- HITLAB (Healthcare Innovation Technology)
PROJECT CATALYST (2016)
Project Catalyst (2016). Caregivers & Technology: What They Want and Need. A Guide for Innovators: Research from a Nationally Representative Sample of America's 40 Million Family Caregivers.
"By 2020, 117 million Americans will need some kind of assistance. The number of unpaid caregivers is only projected to reach 45 million. That makes 1 caregiver for every 2.6 persons."
Considerations:
Half of family caregivers in 2014 were under age 50 & a quarter were millennials
Many people over 50 are online and connected
Many are interested in technology that is intuitive and consumer-friendly
Not enough technology to meet health and wellness needs
Purpose:
This guide was developed by:
1. Understanding how caregivers use technology.
2. Looking at technology functions of interest to caregivers.
3. Identifying barriers innovators need to overcome to meet caregiver's needs.
Demographics:
1. 1,028 caregivers completed online surveys
- Provide 8+ hours of care per week at least once/year
- Care recipients were 50+ years old
- Lived in U.S.
- Could read, speak, and write in English
2. (15) In-home interviews
3. Qualitative and quantitative research methods
Findings:
1. While caregivers’ use of technology to aid their duties is scant, their interest in tech is high:
- 71% of caregivers are interested in technology to support their caregiving tasks
- 7% of caregivers are already using or have used technology available in the market
- Technologies for scheduling, organizing, and medication refill and delivery are used most, and those used least are technologies for finding and procuring assisted-living or in-home aids.
2. Barriers to technology adoption are wide and many, and caregivers perceive lack of awareness, cost, and time to find or learn about new technologies to be their greatest hurdles.
3. Technology use will rise with time.
4. Technology that offers peace of mind is what caregivers want most.
5. Caregivers want tools to ensure medications are managed accurately and with ease.
7. When looking to hire help online, caregivers have significant trust issues.
8. Opportunities abound to restore countless hours, emotional energy, as well as alleviate stress and workload.
Project Catalyst (2016). Caregivers & technology: What they want and need. AARP.
Project Catalyst (2017)
Project Catalyst (2017). Designing Technology for Caregivers: Understanding What Works and Doesn't. AARP.
"Caregivers are overwhelmed, exhausted, and burnt out. Technology can help alleviate some of the stress and burden, but only if it's the right technology, that works for the caregiver and care recipient at the right time, in the right way."
Purpose:
To increase the level of understanding by innovators and investors about the caregiver technology market in order to better support family caregivers.
Process:
Three pilot studies to test 3 areas determined to be "pain points" for caregivers identified in the prior Catalyst study: (a) care coordination; (b) emergency alerting, and (c) in-home aide services.
Family caregivers tested either a (a) care coordination platform, (b) personal emergency response device (PERS), or (c) home-care aide hiring platform for up to 6-weeks.
Findings:
- Provide options for caring for multiple loved ones
- Help caregivers recall what has been completed
- See schedules at a glance
- Cost of PERS device
- Lack of awareness of market options
- Perception that PERS is for old people
- Caregivers are deeply unhappy with the current state of homecare
- Affordable, quality of care is hard to find
- Caregivers feel unprepared and under-supported in the process of finding a home-aide
caregiver challenges
- Maintaining Independence
- Physical Safety
- Monitoring Environment
- Scheduling & Coordinating with Various Caregivers/Service Providers
- Monitoring & Organizing Medications
- Changes in Communication
- Memory Problems
- Obtaining Adequate Support
Tech solutions
resources
Clearview Speech
Email: contact@clearviewspeech.com
Website: www.clearviewspeech.com
Location: 1751 River Run, Fort Worth, TX, USA
Phone: 817.692.8040
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/clearviewspeech/
Twitter: @TechySLP