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According to a recent article by Laurie Orlov for Aging in Place Technology Watch, phone navigation will soon be a critical aging-in-place technology. Orlov believes that by 2013, phone-based navigation will be the dominant form of turn-by-turn navigation. In fact currently, more than one-third of North American consumers own or use some form of navigation services.

Today, surveys indicate that 21% of older boomers (aged 53-63) and 16% of seniors (aged 64+), are using dedicated, GPS, portable navigation devices (PNDs) for their navigation needs. “Moving forward, boomers and seniors should check for phone-based navigation capability in their cell phones when they upgrade. And enterprising vendors should consider designing applications (apps) that take advantage of it,” explains Orlov.

Here are some reasons why cell phone navigation technology can help seniors and people with disabilities age-in-place:

• Cell phone navigation is cheap—Phone navigation also offers voice recognition as well as screen capabilities that are available at multiple and very low price points. For example, the Verizon Wireless VZ Navigator and Sprint Navigation are available for a $9.99 monthly service fee. AT&T also offers the same capability for $9.95 per month.

• It’s available on nearly all cell phones and updates are immediate—Unlike PNDs, with cell phone-based navigation, updates to routes are immediate and happen over the same wireless network that becomes available when the phone is turned on. Plus, GPS-equipped phones will be largely available to the vast majority of phone subscribers by the end of this year. In addition, GPS-equipped phones can also interact with other location-sensitive applications—like current maps, real-time traffic reports, or apps that help people find gas stations or even restrooms in certain cities!

• Phone navigation can also help keep people from getting lost outside of their cars—Navigation will increasingly be as usable for walking around neighborhoods or on vacation as it is for driving. For example, the Nokia Maps application allows users to specify whether requested directions are for foot or car travel.

• FCC E-911 initiative drove vendors to incorporate location assistance—With so many people giving up landlines, the FCC insisted that carriers comply with this E-911 government regulation. Ensuring that cell phones can be located by police or firefighters is one reason that location-based services are now pervasive. For seniors and people with disabilities, this means that cell phone navigation capabilities can be used both to provide directions, as well as enabling a person with a cell phone to be located in an emergency.

Since the boomer and senior populations are swelling, Orlov states that technology vendors must continue creating new software apps that will be beneficial to people who choose to age-in-place. “Transportation apps are needed because as boomers and seniors age, they may remain longer within their own neighborhoods. As a result, they need access to services that make it appealing and feasible to leave the house, with or without a car.” So technology vendors should focus on apps that help seniors and people with disabilities find bus routes and their nearest stops, or identify available and nearby ride sharing.

She concludes that services apps are also needed. “Perhaps a medical map showing where a nearby pharmacy, emergency room, or walk-in clinic might be. Or perhaps even a ‘senior friend finder’ application that helps people participate in transportation buddy systems, helps them know what activities are in town, and who else may be going to a local event.”

Remember, CAPS designated companies like Home Evolutions can also help seniors and people with disabilities continue to live comfortably, safely, and independently as they age-in-place.

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By reading our weekly blog, you already know that universal design features and products make a home safer and more comfortable for a wide range of people. You can create a safe home for everyone, regardless of age, size, or ability. Universal design is meant to fit everyone and every lifestyle including:

•  Families with young children;
•  Seniors who want to stay in their home as they grow older;
•  People who are taller or shorter than average;
•  People who have limited mobility or dexterity;
•  People with a permanent or temporary disability.

Universal design concepts are present in all of Home Evolution’s modifications. These concepts call for all living environments to be accessible and usable by all people regardless of their age or physical ability level. In addition to making your home more adaptable to your needs, these modifications are seamlessly integrated into the design of your home. Having universal design features and products in a home prevents accidents, increases comfort and safety, and enhances residents’ independence.

In the next issue of The Forever Home newsletter—available next week—we discuss some of the essential universal design features.

Universal design is also one of the many topics that we can come and speak to your organization or group about. We’re available to conduct a seminar or presentation at no charge on any Aging-in-Place topic you may be interested in. Contact us today to set up an appointment.

Now, for a limited time, Home Evolutions is offering a free Quality of Life and Home Safety Checklist. Please fill out the information on this form to receive your free 63 point quality of life and home safety checklist. After submitting the form, a PDF of the checklist will be emailed to you.

University of Virginia researchers are working on a home monitoring system that could allow seniors and people with disabilities to live in their homes longer.

It has developed technological solutions for in-home monitoring of residents in order to provide quality of life indicators. The in-home monitoring system is composed of a suite of low-cost, non-invasive sensors (strictly no cameras or microphones), and a data logging and communications module, in addition to an integrated data management system, linked to the Internet.

The system, created as part of a collaboration between the university’s architecture and engineering schools to design and build eco-friendly modular homes, is gathering data in the first ecoMOD home in Charlottesville that was finished two years ago.

According to Paxton Marshall, a professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering, the goal is to design a marketable system, and software, that reports information in real time. This allows children of seniors to use the “as-it’s-happening” system to monitor their parents remotely from a computer or cell phone.

The new system also allows for breaking down, second-by-second, when utilities are being expended and in what amounts, if needed. For instance, the system could detect which appliances are being used by the energy they’re drawing. It can also detect where energy is being wasted.

It is anticipated that the use of this technology will result in:

• Improved informal care effectiveness without increasing intrusion.
• Reduced cost of informal care, which is particularly high for senior populations.
• Reduced burdens on the informal caregiver, and hence reduced stress and improved mental and physical health conditions.
• Involving the care recipient in health promoting activities and decision-making.
• An extended healthy, active and dignified life for seniors that can be widely accessible to the low-income strata of society.
• Delayed admittance to specialized institutions, and hence a reduced cost of formal elder care.
• Reduced formal care burdens, and hence improved formal care.

The in-home monitoring system has the following unique characteristics:

• Implemented in simple low-cost sensor technology, which makes it affordable to the lowest 30% of income earners.
• Adaptively retrofits into existing home structures, with minimal impact, modification and cost.
• The data-mining component yields unique health status reports that can be made available to the occupants, their medical advisors and their family members.
• The system is customizable to the individual’s needs, as well as different cultural needs.

What do you think of the new in-home monitoring system? What impact can it have on living independently?

Panelists at a recent remodeling show in Baltimore, Maryland, suggested that builders should consider teaming up with occupational therapists (OTs) in order to better understand the needs of seniors and people with disabilities who choose to age-in-place.

OTs are healthcare professionals who help improve their clients’ abilities to perform functional tasks in their daily lives. As a result of age or disability, the clients of OTs often need assistance to retain their personal levels of functionality. Through assessments and interventions designed to achieve positive outcomes, OTs help their clients develop, recover, or maintain their normal living skills. This allows many seniors and people with disabilities to continue to live in their own homes safely and independently.

On the home modification side of aging-in-place, OTs can help contractors determine what should be modified in a house by evaluating the client’s physical or emotional strengths and limitations, as well as any medical conditions that may have an impact on how they function. Michael O’Neal, an urban sociologist with AARP, agreed that contractors should always consider that seniors or people with disabilities may not fully understand what is being explained to them during a home evaluation.

Carla Chase, a representative of The American Occupational Therapy Association, Inc., further noted, “There can be much more that remodelers need to know about prospective clients who are older [or have special needs], and occupational therapists can play an essential role in this process.”

Seniors and people with disabilities often require guidance, encouragement, and support when it comes to overcoming the natural hesitation that is associated with accepting one’s need for personal adaptations and home modifications. These are exactly the types of productive discussions that can be successfully facilitated by personal care professionals like OTs.

In addition to their recommendation about consulting with OTs, the panelists at the aforementioned Baltimore remodeling show also highly recommended contracting remodelers who have Certified Aging-in-Place Specialist (CAPS) training from the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). This is precisely one of the specialized certifications held by Harry Burns, Founder of Home Evolutions.

Have you or a loved one ever utilized the services of an Occupational Therapist? What other kinds of healthcare or service professionals can help you to age-in-place?

Check out the upcoming issue of Home Evolutions’ e-newsletter, The Forever Home, for more on this topic.

As winter approaches, staying warm and safe can become a challenge for many seniors and people with disabilities. Although staying indoors as much as possible can help reduce your risk of having an automobile accident or falling on the ice, there are other problems that you may face in your home when the weather gets cold.

Poor insulation, drafty windows, and clogged furnace filters are just a few things that can spike your heating bill in the winter and raise your risk of developing hypothermia. Protecting your home against the cold can keep you warm and dry this winter, and also lower your energy use up to 50%, which means big savings on your next heating bill.

Home Evolutions can perform a walk-through of your home and identify the areas where you’re losing energy, such as cracked windows, gaps in doors, and inadequate or no insulation in the attic.

One tip for conserving energy this winter is to set your furnace between 68 and 70 degrees. When you’re going to be away from your home during the day, set the furnace thermostat 3 to 5 degrees lower. You can also use a draft stopper underneath exterior doors to reduce drafts. Do you have air infiltration through your windows? Use caulk to weatherstrip the doors and windows that leak air.

Conservation Consultants of Pittsburgh offers these other energy conservation tips:

Breathe easier: Help your furnace or central air conditioner breathe easier—check the filter at least once a month and replace it when it’s dirty.

Chill out your washing machine: About 90% of the energy used to wash clothes goes towards heating water. A laundry detergent designed for cold water washing usually works just as well. Switch to cold water and save $30–$40 in energy costs annually. In addition, always running full loads in your washer can save 3,400 gallons of water a year.

Retire your refrigerator: An old fridge (pre-2001) is one of the biggest energy hogs in your home unless you have an electric furnace or whole-house air conditioning. If you have an older refrigerator, replace it with a new one that’s Energy Star™ certified. It will use about 40% less electricity.

A bright idea: Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFLs) have become better and cheaper, and they’re available just about everywhere light bulbs are sold. Switch from old-style bulbs to CFLs and you’ll cut your electricity bill for lighting by around 75%.

The big turn-off: The easiest way to save energy and save money? It takes only a fraction of a second—turn off the lights when you leave a room!

Use your (shower) head: Replacing old shower heads with new, low-flow models can cut energy and water use by 25% or more. Faucet aerators and toilet tank volume-reducing bladders will also help conserve water. Fix your leaky faucets—a faucet that drips 3 times in 5 seconds wastes 13 gallons of water per day and 4,927 gallons per year.

The energy trap: The U.S. Department of Energy & the Environmental Protection Agency figure that you’ll save around $34 a year in energy costs if you clean the lint trap in your clothes dryer before each and every load.

What other tips/advice do you have for conserving energy this winter?

A Tampa-based builder was so inspired by the sight of veterans coming home from the war with disabilities that he started building sustainable homes to allow veterans to age-in-place in an energy-efficient home. This article in the St. Petersburg Times talks about one of these homes, dubbed the Freedom Home, near Busch Gardens.

The home, like others that are built or modified to allow seniors and people with disabilities age-in-place, are equipped with a host of features to make life easier as the owners age. The house is affordably priced, starting at $131,900 for a 1,200-square-foot home.

The managing partner of this company says that most homes that have been remodeled to accommodate people with disabilities “make them more disabled instead of enhancing their lives. Your home should give you freedom instead of disabling you more.”

For instance, some doorways remain too narrow to accommodate a wheelchair, carpeting or vinyl flooring quickly develops wheel ruts, bathrooms are hard to negotiate in a wheelchair, kitchen counters are too high, ranges and sinks that can’t be used from a sitting position, etc. Home modification is more than just installing blocking for grab bars in the shower.

The Freedom Home uses engineered wood floors, which are easy to roll on and attractive. A structural support is added into the ceiling of the master bedroom so an overhead lift can be added if needed to assist a person with a disability or someone who breaks a hip.

In addition to the standard aging-in-place features, this home also incorporates energy-smart, low-maintenance, money-saving features, including Icynene foam insulation in the attic; double-glazed, low-E windows; a heat pump that exceeds code minimum; and a programmable thermostat. All the appliances are Energy Star-rated to use less electricity than is standard.

Reducing utility expenses is another concern for people as they age-in-place. While they want to continue living at home, sometimes the costs may be too much to bear. However, an energy-efficient or sustainable home helps to significantly reduce costs for the homeowner. When you’re modifying your home so you can continue living independently, be sure to discuss with your contractor some energy-efficient features.

What are some ways you can reduce your energy costs?

As a result of the growing trend of seniors and persons with disabilities deciding to age-in-place, a new faction of professional health care specialists is also expanding to meet the needs of those who wish to remain living comfortably and safely in their own homes.

These care managers are known by many names:  Certified Care Managers, Geriatric Care Managers, Health Care Managers, and Professional Geriatric Care Managers—to name a few.

The Health Care Manager (HCM) is generally a nurse or social worker who is qualified to provide personal care and recommend services that can make seniors’ or persons’ with disabilities lives easier as they age-in-place. The objective of HCMs is to determine what is needed in order to maintain and improve their clients’ quality of life at home.

Care management includes duties such as the comprehensive assessment of an individual’s needs, communication with families and physicians, as well as post-hospital and rehab planning.

HCMs will assess the current, life-circumstances of seniors and persons with disabilities and recommend or provide the services needed to make living independently at home enjoyable, healthy, more possible, prolonged, and safe. This includes developing a personalized care plan, arranging and implementing care services, as well as continually reassessing and modifying their clients’ care requirements and needs as they change.

In addition to health-related services, HCMs can also provide general living assistance to their clients by being a source of information, locating community and social resources, managing finances, providing crisis intervention, reviewing legal issues, and giving referrals to other health care specialists. HCMs are often extremely accessible—offering services and care 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The following organizations and their Web sites offer additional, specialized information on HCMs:

•    National Association of Professional Geriatric Care Managers (NAPGCM)
•    National Academy of Certified Care Managers (NACCM)

What current or future care challenges do you think you may face while aging-in-place?

How might a Health Care Manager help you deal with these challenges and allow you to remain living comfortably, safely, and independently in your own home?

Check out the upcoming issue of Home Evolutions’ e-newsletter, The Forever Home, for more on HCMs.