Page 4 - Green Builder Magazine May-June 2019 Issue
P. 4
EDITOR’S NOTE By Matt Power
The Inside Scoop Editor-in-Chief
Caption. Text
Assisted Living Technology:
Urgency and Empathy
Making the lives of seniors better offers technology firms a priceless objective.
FTEN, the dark side of technology put to good work is in the area of elder care.
seems to outweigh its value. Too We’re all facing the same crisis as our parents
late, for example, are we learning (and ourselves) grow older. We don’t want to
about Facebook’s role in spreading be institutionalized; forced to leave our homes
O hate speech, fueling conspiracies to be cared for by strangers. And it’s my belief
and generating false news. Watch a few episodes that emerging technology has the power to buy
of “Black Mirror” and you’ll see many examples us valuable time to live relatively normal lives
of technology’s disruptive potential. But does at home, in our most senior years.
technology have to careen out of control? This concept is new to the tech industry.
That’s up to us. Like other manmade tools, we We call it Assisted Living Technology (ALT).
can choose what to do with technology. We need To my knowledge, this issue of Green Builder
to own our decisions. A drone used to spot forest represents the first attempt to synthesize
res can save lives and wildlife. A drone used existing and emerging tech with real-world
to kill people is, well, a reection of its operator. assisted living needs. Sure, hundreds of gadgets
One area where technology can and is being exist to address individual concerns about
seniors: fall sensors, voice control, smart refrigerators and so on.
But what’s needed is much more: an intuitive house with built-in
systems to monitor, protect, entertain and, at times, escort elder
residents to faraway friends, family and locations, not simply to
make them prisoners in their homes.
At the same time, an ALT home, perhaps in the form of a self-
contained Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU), invokes good building
science. It’s aordable to operate; the oors are designed to absorb
fall impacts. Systems run eciently in the background. More than
just wheelchair friendly, it’s a life-enhancing space.
Virtual eld trips are a voice command away. An autonomous car
whisks in to pick up mother for a holiday dinner. And there are no
invasive cameras watching her every move.
The arena of smart home technology has been around for decades.
I remember when only the millionaires could aord a full-on smart
home. Now you can piece one together for a couple hundred
bucks using o-the-shelf components—or step up to a full suite of
interconnected products.
CREDIT: CECILIE ARCURS will. When they do, a truly humanistic alternative to institutional
No one has really put all the pieces together yet. But we believe they
assisted care could take shape. How refreshing it would be if for
them—oering us a gentler, more-meaningful way to go into the
Time to travel. Virtual reality travel is just one way technology has begun once, instead of fueling our darkest fears, technology soothed
to enhance the lives of seniors. long good night. GB
2 GREEN BUILDER May/June 2019 www.greenbuildermedia.com
2 GB 0519 Editor's Note.indd 2 5/8/19 3:08 PM
