‘The Future of AI and Older Adults 2023’ now published

Laurie Orlov of Aging and Technology Watch in her latest paper tackles the latest iterations of AI and ML, tracing their roots back to 2014 to the original smart speakers and voice assistance, technologies that enabled older adults to access services with convenience and at reasonable cost. What will be the impact of AI using tools such as large language models (LLM) like ChatGPT to develop improved search, voice assistance, answers to health questions, and care plans written in understandable and empathetic language? For care facilities and senior housing, will they leverage AI with voice and sensor tech to improve safety monitoring for both residents and caregivers, plus the dream of predictive health for residents or those living at home with limited assistance? Will chatbots get a lot smarter versus obnoxious? Find out what both the short term and long term (5+ year) impact could be. 

Ms. Orlov’s somewhat gimlety view includes Gartner’s infamous Hype Cycle chart on page 5. As of today, most AI technologies reside in the balmy Peak of Inflated Expectations, the place where whatever investment funding is going. There’s lots of innovation and kitchen table hackathoning. Looming about two years out is the inevitable Trough of Disillusionment which has already been kicked off by Big Thinkers such as Steve Wozniak. As this Editor observed last month, it is a double-edged sword, with the bad side in its potential for data misuse, fraud, fakery, and malicious action. It’s already created controversy that this Editor predicts will crest in the next year with demands for regulation. We’re not there yet, however.

Download of the PDF is here and free.

Telecare-assisted AL resident monitoring: study

Research on telecare in the US has been rare of late. Thus this qualitative analysis of focus groups with twelve housing managers from twelve different Evangelical Lutheran Good Samaritan Society (GSS) assisted living communities in the LivingWell@Home (LW@H) program should be looked at carefully for both benefits of and issues with sensor-based monitoring of residents’ significant activities of daily living (ADLs). On the ten most prevalent themes, the most positive were:

  • Benefits: marketing in bridging home to AL and enhanced quality of care; validation of information helping with resident medical status and overall safety; proactive detection of health events
  • Sleep patterns: quality of sleep was perceived as important, and disturbance as an advance indicator of a change in resident health
  • Family member assurance: family members understand the value of technology-assisted care in advanced alerting to potential health problems. In fact using the system at home was possibly more attractive to them than in AL.

However, issues with the LW@H program ranged from perceptual ones (resident privacy)  (more…)