Improving Environments for Prolonged Home Patients
Informal caregiver and family caregiver are terms used to refer to unpaid individuals such as family members, partners, friends and neighbors who provide care. — The Family Caregiver Alliance.
As per FCA fact sheets, 65.7 million informal and family caregivers provide care to someone who is ill, disabled or aged in the U.S.
Home-patients have the benefit of living with more independence and can avoid admission to long-term care in the hospitals or other institutions. However, the drawbacks of the system of home care is the quality of care it offers. Majority of the patients in the home care environment face a tremendous decline in their health with time. Complicated unique settings of the environment for the patients and a high dependency of the patient on the caretaker makes patient care more challenging for the caregivers. It is observed that over a period, caregivers suffer from emotional burnouts because of the pressure and the workload. These burnouts affect the positivity and ultimately affects the healing of the patient. I am inspired to design environments for such home patients by merging the physical world around them with technology like IOT, AR or VR to make their life easier by making them more independent.
Patients with a long history of illness have a complicated life because of medications, injections and constant observation. Long-term diseases create an unpleasant environment within the family, resulting in fights and ignorance. It creates restrictions in performing normal life activities of caregivers and affects the patient and family members mentally. I believe that the even though the home care system is complex, small solutions can lead to more significant changes.
'How might we reduce the physical and emotional dependency of patients on their caregivers with the help of technology?'
Technology in healthcare is making lives more comfortable for such families. Some exciting products solving such problems are-
1) https://www.simply-home.com/home - SimplyHome designs and installs customizable remote support systems that empower independent living for aging and disabled populations.
2) http://gpssmartsole.com/gpssmartsole/ - GPS SmartSole is a smartphone hidden and sealed in a trim-able shoe insole that can help track patients with Dementia and Autism.
3) http://www.medsignals.com/ - MedSignals reminds about the medicines and monitors the patient's reports.
4) http://www.mevia.se/ - A package that sends information in regards to which pill has been taken in Real-Time to the system.
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