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Editor in Chief:
Donna Cusano (See articles)
Contributing Editors:
Charles Lowe (See articles)
Chrys Meewella (See articles)
Founder: Steve Hards
Telehealth and Telecare Aware posts pointers to a broad range of news items. Authors of those items often use terms 'telecare' and telehealth' in inventive and idiosyncratic ways. Telecare Aware's editors can generally live with that variation. However, when we use these terms we usually mean:
• Telecare: from simple personal alarms (AKA pendant/panic/medical/social alarms, PERS, and so on) through to smart homes that focus on alerts for risk including, for example: falls; smoke; changes in daily activity patterns and 'wandering'. Telecare may also be used to confirm that someone is safe and to prompt them to take medication. The alert generates an appropriate response to the situation allowing someone to live more independently and confidently in their own home for longer.
• Telehealth: as in remote vital signs monitoring. Vital signs of patients with long term conditions are measured daily by devices at home and the data sent to a monitoring centre for response by a nurse or doctor if they fall outside predetermined norms. Telehealth has been shown to replace routine trips for check-ups; to speed interventions when health deteriorates, and to reduce stress by educating patients about their condition.
Telecare Aware's editors concentrate on what we perceive to be significant events and technological and other developments in telecare and telehealth. We make no apology for being independent and opinionated or for trying to be interesting rather than comprehensive.
Check out the mobile connected smoke alarm from Firetext which appears to have several benefits over this device: http://firetext.me
Because it doesn’t need a smartphone to be plugged in it doesn’t require the resident to have a smartphone, it’ll work the other 20 hours of the day you’re not charging your mobile, it’ll work if you forgot to plug your phone in, it will still work in the event of a power cut, etc, etc.
I welcome all telecare innovations, especially when they can work without the need for expensive infrastructure. However it is just perhaps worth pointing out that there is a good reason why smoke and CO detectors are usually put on the ceiling – that’s where smoke tends to go to first, and CO, being lighter than air, concentrates more – another reason why David’s earlier comment is very valid.