Page 25 - Green Builder Magazine May-June 2019 Issue

ACTIVE HEALTH MONITORING
Even with VR-encouraged exercise, elder health will often need
support and observation. New technology monitors vital signs in
the background, dispenses medications in a timely manner without
nagging, and provides regular, non-invasive “checkups” to catch
potential problems before they get serious.
The best of these new tools integrates with normal activities. For
example, scanning technology embedded in mirrors can analyze the
human body for dozens of risk factors. Is the person overweight? Is
their spine misaligned? Do they have in€ammation of certain glands?
Scanning technology does this not with cameras but with
sophisticated 3-D modeling, “multispectral” cameras and gas sensors.
The mirror is yet another version of what used by the „ctional
“tricorder” seen on “Star Trek” for many years.
The category of health and wellness, of course, is exploding within
the world of gadget innovation. Much of this innovation certainly
has relevance to aging in place, but it hasn’t understood (or doesn’t
care about) the huge boomer population’s needs. It’s one thing to
create a Smart Bra that will monitor your heart, but that doesn’t
mean your 80-year-old mother will strap it on. What’s needed are
more devices that simply integrate with the home, and don’t depend
on daily behavior modi„cation.
For example, why can’t the grab bars in the bathroom check the
vital signs of the user? Something like this already exists, aimed at
„tness fanatics. It’s called the Insta Pulse 105 Heart Rate Monitor
Grab Bar. When will big tech companies realize they’ve got to look
at how older people actually live, and base the tech around that? Inner light. New smart mirrors and other sensors can evaluate many
continued on page 24 health aspects non-invasively.

Can Virtual Connections Help the Lonely?

The verdict is mixed, but applications from group travel

to social meeting offer many variations on this concept.

NE OF THE most tragic losses of aging is regular social interaction. Studies suggest
about 30 to 40 percent of seniors report feeling lonely on a regular basis.
Can virtual and/or augmented reality help? Maybe. The technologies have their
O detractors, who see them as another step back from real human interaction—but
for a senior who’s housebound, they may be the most affordable, least complicated method
of connecting with peers.
At CES, I spoke with Tom Neumann, co-founder of Rendever. The AARP has put a lot of
cachet in this technology, and in his VR company.
Neumann showed me some brief demos of what Rendever is doing. Groups of seniors in
assisted care facilities get together in a room, put on their VR headsets and “travel” to an
exotic location together, such as Venice or the Pyramids.
The limitation that Rendever and other firms face, however, is that virtual reality is only as
real as its source. Rendever taps into Google’s street-view database to populate its virtual
tours. That photography is fine for house-hunting, but not so great when you want to zoom CREDIT: RENDEVER
in and look at a neat architectural detail.
Does this current level of detailed interaction make a difference? It would to my middle- Reality check. The fact that virtual reality is only as real as its
aged cohort, but perhaps not as much to seniors, who may expect less from technology than source is not so troubling to seniors, who may have different
upcoming generations. expectations than younger generations.

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