Expert View The Marriage of Technology and Alzheimer's Caregiving: Staying Safely at Home Longer

• Library: Alzheimer's and the Practice of Law: Counseling Clients with Dementia and Their Families (ABA) (2013 Ed.)

EXPERT VIEW The Marriage of Technology and Alzheimer's Caregiving: Staying Safely at Home Longer

The Oaks, a United Methodist Continuous Care Retirement Community, is located in Orangeburg, which is inland from Charleston, South Carolina. What attracted us was the exciting work being done there to give people diagnosed with dementia the ability to live at home with dignity while providing peace of mind for family members and caregiv-ers. The Oaks provides traditional senior services and care combined with a look to the future, recognizing that there is extraordinary pressure to move long-term care from the institutional facility back into the community.

The visionary leader of the Oaks is the Rev. James McGee, CEO. When we met with him and Stacie Pierce, the director of the technology/caregiving solution program called Live at Home Technologies, they had recently returned from meeting with IT wizards in Israel. The purpose of the trip was to further their research, development, and implementation of innovative technologies to provide remote in-home care for people affected by dementia. Some of the activities monitored include motion of an individual or lack of motion, bed and chair activities, medication access, patterns of movement through the home, daily body weight, daily blood pressure and blood glucose, time spent in the bathroom, the opening and closing of interior and exterior doors, and...