5 Ways Technology Can Help Seniors Stay Safe and Secure

When you’re a professional caregiver, keeping the clients you serve healthy, happy, and safe is the biggest part of your job. In many cases, this means utilizing modern technology to ensure that the home environment of those you serve is as secure as possible. After all, you may not be able to keep an eye on seniors that you care for 24/7!

Today, we’re working with our friends at MedicareInsurance.com to bring you five ways technology can help seniors stay safe and secure. As caregivers and providers, technology makes it much easier for you to keep your senior clients safe. It’s important to learn what works best for you and your family and/or clients so that you can keep them safe!

1. Care Apps Provide Instant Connection

In any setting, cameras can feel too invasive. If you’re a home healthcare tech, visiting high-risk senior clients every day may not be an option. How, then, do you keep in touch with them to make sure they’re okay?

Care apps such as Oscar Senior are an excellent solution. These new applications offer numerous measures that allow you to check in on seniors, such as:

• Auto-answer calls that connect you with seniors immediately in case of emergency
• Easy access to apps the senior may have downloaded, such as SilverSneakers
• Video calls and messages that allow quick and easy check-ins
• Voice assistant, which allows the senior to place calls or request daily check-ins by simply speaking a command
• Quick access to telehealth visits with healthcare providers

These apps connect to any smart device that the senior may own in their home, including:

• Smartphones
• Tablets
• CO2 sensors
• Thermostats

Because of the ability of the app to connect to numerous device types, it’s easier than ever to monitor and assess risks that are present in a senior’s home environment. It’s also easier to mitigate them in order to keep the seniors safe.

2. Monitored Locks Help Deter Wandering

Seniors with cognitive illnesses and disabilities are at high risk for wandering away from home. Monitored locks, triggered by a bracelet monitor worn on the wrist or ankle, can help deter and reduce these incidents.

Seniors known for wandering are often fitted with a bracelet monitor to track their whereabouts. When a senior wearing a bracelet monitor gets too close to a door leading outside, a lock is triggered to prevent them from leaving. This effectively stops a potential wandering incident before it can occur.

Care apps can also provide support for monitored locks. These can allow you to:

• Remotely lock a door to prevent an instance of wandering
• Remotely unlock a door for a senior who has been locked out of their home

3. Monitor Bracelets Help You Keep Track of a High-Risk Senior’s Whereabouts

Let’s say that a senior citizen in your care is able to somehow make their way out of a door with a monitored lock. In the past, you’d have needed to spend numerous hours searching. With a monitor bracelet, authorities can pinpoint a wandering senior’s location with ease.

Monitor bracelets are linked to a program that caregivers can use to keep track of a high-risk senior’s whereabouts. Local authorities have access to this technology and information as well. In most cases, it takes authorities just minutes to find a senior who may have wandered away from home or a skilled nursing facility if they’re wearing a monitor bracelet.

4. Cameras are a Time-Tested Way to Keep an Eye on Seniors

Locks, monitoring devices, and apps are a great help, but they can only do so much on their own. It’s often best to be able to keep an eye on those you care for, and cameras allow you to do that around the clock.

While cameras can’t be placed in private rooms or settings, they can be placed in common areas and hallways. This allows you to keep a close watch on seniors in your care as they move about their home, be it a nursing facility or their own dwelling. If the senior that you care for is aging in place, monitoring cameras can be integrated with care apps to allow you to watch over them as often as possible.

5. Med Management and Planner Apps Allow Seniors to Age Gracefully in Place

Apps are a great way to help anyone manage their lives, including seniors. You can’t always be around to remind them to take their medications or go to doctor’s appointments. Thankfully, apps for medication management and planner apps can help seniors better age in place by reminding them:

• When it’s time to take their medications
• How often medications should be taken
• Of upcoming doctor’s appointments and other activities

Modern technology has certainly made it much easier for you to care for your loved ones. When it comes to finding tech that can help you keep the ones you care for safe and secure, there’s rarely a wrong answer.