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. 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. But the drawbacks of the system of home care is the quality of care it offers. Majority of the patients in home care environment face a tremendous decline in their health with time. Complex 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 of time, caregivers suffer from emotional burnouts because of the pressure and the workload. These burnouts affects 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 constant medications, injections, constant observation. Long-term diseases create an unpleasant environment within the family, results in fights and ignorance. It creates restrictions in performing normal life activities of caregivers and disturbs the patient and family members mentally. I believe that the even though the home care system is complex, small solutions can lead to bigger changes. 

'How might we reduce physical and emotional dependency of patients on their caregivers with the help of technology?'

Technology in healthcare is making lives easier for such families. Some interesting products solving such a problem 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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