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> At least in the usa, the elderly are a severely under served community. A statement that requires qualification to be meaningful. Medicare, Medicare HMOs, an

> At least in the usa, the elderly are a severely under served community. A statement that requires qualification to be meaningful. Medicare, Medicare HMOs, and Medicare/Medicaid dual coverage add up to giving elders better healthcare coverage than any other demographic in the US.

hdhsisjd 7y ago
Rediculous and clearly ignorant, anyone who has experienced a high needs elderly person is going to be aware of the high cost to achieve a comfortable standard of living. There are articles in mainstream newspapers every year about mistreatment of elderly patients in convalescent homes, instances of abuse from family members are common and also known to be under reported as well and the list goes on. What you're arguing relates to cost while entirely sidestepping the topic of if those costs actually produce acceptable outcomes. Lowering costs further empowers the elderly to act in a more agentic fashion.
- nyolfen 7y ago
  not sure how pervasive biometric monitoring is supposed to address elder abuse, but "elderly are a severely under served community" is perhaps the most historically rootless and wrong-yet-unfalsifiable thing i've read this week. 'bad things happen to some old people' is not contrary evidence and has nothing to do with the medical attention and resources available for the elderly in our society in both absolute and relative terms.
  - hdhsisjd 7y ago
    The example was already given, biometric monitoring could be used to help elderly people who want to maintain their freedom instead of being shoe-horned into a home but it could also be used to decrease staffing costs as well if it can be done in a non-invasive (in the medical sense) fashion. I'm not sure what your grudge against the elderly is or why it's hard to comprehend that as people age their medical needs increase but nothing about this is news to people who work in a field that services older demographics. This whole line of dialogue is a red herring though because, regardless of if you agree or not, the point was that this sort of technology has real use cases that are driven by consumer demand. You can romanticize these experiences all you want but the reason that tech like this finds consumers is because it's meeting real needs. This idea that the populace at large is only okay with data collection because they don't understand it is just a way for privacy advocates to sidestep responsibility for any useful tech that their policies might render impossible.
    - raxxorrax 7y ago
      You could also tag bad cardiological readings for a bad credit score. Elders would really love that. They cannot even hold back with their demand. This is why you hear screams of joy if you mention 5G in homes for the elderly.
- samatman 7y ago
  Making a throwaway account isn't license to be rude to people. Do better.
ihunter2839 7y ago
Falling, and the injuries / changes in quality of life that falling brings, is a serious issue for seniors. https://www.ncoa.org/news/resources-for-reporters/get-the-facts/falls-prevention-facts/ https://www.ncoa.org/news/resources-for-reporters/get-the-fa... A few years ago, I worked for a small startup looking to use wearable devices to detect early changes in gait as a means to effectively deliver early intervention techniques. The science around the topic is solid - there is good research backing which parameters of gait are most predictive and what therapies are most effective for any given scenario. The problem we always encountered was compliance. Customers (senior living facilities, insurance agencies, etc) want to know that the devices are being used. Seniors are notoriously slow to adopt tech, and adding another device to daily life is the last thing most seniors that we spoke to wanted to deal with. We got to interview with YC for this idea but were rejected. Skimming the companies from that batch I later found https://www.totemic.com/ https://www.totemic.com/ They use back-skatter technologies to provide a compliance-free fall monitoring system. After spending two years in the problem space, I knew a superior solution when I saw it.

hdhsisjd 7y ago

Rediculous and clearly ignorant, anyone who has experienced a high needs elderly person is going to be aware of the high cost to achieve a comfortable standard of living. There are articles in mainstream newspapers every year about mistreatment of elderly patients in convalescent homes, instances of abuse from family members are common and also known to be under reported as well and the list goes on. What you're arguing relates to cost while entirely sidestepping the topic of if those costs actually produce acceptable outcomes. Lowering costs further empowers the elderly to act in a more agentic fashion.

nyolfen 7y ago
not sure how pervasive biometric monitoring is supposed to address elder abuse, but "elderly are a severely under served community" is perhaps the most historically rootless and wrong-yet-unfalsifiable thing i've read this week. 'bad things happen to some old people' is not contrary evidence and has nothing to do with the medical attention and resources available for the elderly in our society in both absolute and relative terms.
- hdhsisjd 7y ago
  The example was already given, biometric monitoring could be used to help elderly people who want to maintain their freedom instead of being shoe-horned into a home but it could also be used to decrease staffing costs as well if it can be done in a non-invasive (in the medical sense) fashion. I'm not sure what your grudge against the elderly is or why it's hard to comprehend that as people age their medical needs increase but nothing about this is news to people who work in a field that services older demographics. This whole line of dialogue is a red herring though because, regardless of if you agree or not, the point was that this sort of technology has real use cases that are driven by consumer demand. You can romanticize these experiences all you want but the reason that tech like this finds consumers is because it's meeting real needs. This idea that the populace at large is only okay with data collection because they don't understand it is just a way for privacy advocates to sidestep responsibility for any useful tech that their policies might render impossible.
  - raxxorrax 7y ago
    You could also tag bad cardiological readings for a bad credit score. Elders would really love that. They cannot even hold back with their demand. This is why you hear screams of joy if you mention 5G in homes for the elderly.
samatman 7y ago
Making a throwaway account isn't license to be rude to people. Do better.

ihunter2839 7y ago

Falling, and the injuries / changes in quality of life that falling brings, is a serious issue for seniors. https://www.ncoa.org/news/resources-for-reporters/get-the-facts/falls-prevention-facts/ https://www.ncoa.org/news/resources-for-reporters/get-the-fa... A few years ago, I worked for a small startup looking to use wearable devices to detect early changes in gait as a means to effectively deliver early intervention techniques. The science around the topic is solid - there is good research backing which parameters of gait are most predictive and what therapies are most effective for any given scenario. The problem we always encountered was compliance. Customers (senior living facilities, insurance agencies, etc) want to know that the devices are being used. Seniors are notoriously slow to adopt tech, and adding another device to daily life is the last thing most seniors that we spoke to wanted to deal with. We got to interview with YC for this idea but were rejected. Skimming the companies from that batch I later found https://www.totemic.com/ https://www.totemic.com/ They use back-skatter technologies to provide a compliance-free fall monitoring system. After spending two years in the problem space, I knew a superior solution when I saw it.