The First Step is Understanding the Problem

 

Providing care to an elderly parent or loved one is a challenging task.  Adult children are often "sandwiched" between caring for their elderly parents and caring for their own family.  Caregiver fatigue has become a common phenomenon affecting the health of the caregiver herself.

 

Effective eldercare requires a team approach.  In most cases, the family and/or caregivers and health care providers act as separate entities, each somewhat unaware about the other's involvement in caring for a senior  Family members who have the largest emotional investment are often the least informed

 

The solution to bridging these groups is an intelligent digital assistant that we call SENCOM.  It was designed specifically to assist family members in managing the care and well being of a loved one..  The system can be used at home or in a senior care facility.  SENCOM provides many of the functions needed for daily living including, reminders, schedules, medication compliance, social interaction, check-ins and other useful  functions for the individual.  In addition, SENCOM monitors the care and well being of an individual  and stores the data in the cloud making it accessible to family members and other caregivers.  SENCOM is intelligent and can learn how to improve it's usefulness by understanding the activity patterns of the individual.

 

Using SENCOM at home can delay or prevent the need to enter a care facility.  The average monthly cost of a care facility ranges from $3500 to $6500 depending on the level of care needed.  SENCOM can monitor and provide some of the the most import needs of a senior living at home  including medication compliance, fall detection, transportation and other home services.  In the United States alone, 75% of emergency room visits by patients over 65 is because of under or over dosing on medications.  SENCOM helps prevent this through reminders, showing exactly how many pills to take and what they look like and why the medication is needed.  After taken, the individual simply presses a button and the data is stored in the cloud.  Family members can be notified via messaging if medications are consistently missed.

 

Using SENCOM in a care facility provides an additional level of comfort for a family that  often faces financial and emotional challenges in placing their loved one in a care facility.  SENCOM allows a senior to communicate regularly through email, video chat and survey questions that can be shared between the family and care facility.  The care facility can also update a resident's day-to-day record allowing the family to monitor not just their loved one but also the care facility to ensure not just quality of care but also quality of life.

 

 

How Can We Help?

 

SENCOM provides several key features to help a senior living at home or in a care facility.  Below a are just a few of SENCOM's features:

 

Health and Safety Features

• Medication Compliance
• Tele-health integration
• EHR Integration through HL7 messaging
• Calendar and scheduling functions with alerts and notifications
• Smart Home Integration
• Surveys and health information
• In home movement monitoring
• Database stores health information securely in the cloud and is accessible to anyone with valid credentials
• Cognitive assessments and puzzles

 

Social Features

• Safe Internet Use
• Simplified and protected email
• Video Chat
• Video messages
• Journaling

 

Other Features

• SENCOM Senior Educational Portal (SEP) for senior and caregiving coaching
• Text-to-Speech (TTS) and voice recognition
• Actual human voice reminders and information
• User defined dashboard including weather, stocks and news feeds

 

Add-ons

• SENCOM is extensible allowing integration with most web based applications and ordering services, (e.g.,  groceries, care and grooming services.)

The healthcare ecosystem is complex and family caregivers must simultaneously manage work, social and care responsibilities.