We had a mother with Alzheimer's who lived independently until the age of 86.
She lived 45 minutes away from us and wanted to remain in her own home. Her brother and sister lived close by and stopped by frequently. We visited three times a week and took her to doctors' appointments, grocery shopping etc.
She was generally safe in her home and clear minded, but she would have brief episodes where she hallucinated and thought people had broken into her house and stole things. Her companion was a big German Shepherd who was very protective and would not have let anyone break in.
When she had these episodes she would call us and we would have to go to her house. We always quickly "found" what had been stolen-usually her pocketbook-which she had hung on a doorknob.
If the technology was available back then in the late 1990s we would have put Echo Dots and cameras in her home and would have been able to easily communicate with her and show here where her "stolen" items were.
We have a 79 year old fiercely independent friend who has lost 95% of her sight within the last year due to melanoma behind her left eye.
She now has to learn to live independently without being able to see. She has an iPhone and uses Siri to make her phone calls and create and read her text messages. She has Fire TV and uses Alexa to find old movies, tell her the weather and help her find her phone which she frequently misplaces.
She loves Seeing Ai and uses it to identify currency (before Seeing AI she once mistakenly handed a waitress a $50 bill as a tip. She thought it was a $5 bill. The waitress handed it back and told her that it was too much. She also uses Seeing AI in the grocery store.
We have a 93-year-old Aunt who lives alone in a home on several acres in a small town . She can no longer drive and suffers from hearing loss and glaucoma. Her son lives several states away, but she stays in touch with him and her nephew 2500 miles away via Alexa Video Calling. She also loves her Amazon Fire TV and security cameras
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One of our team members lost his wife of 51 years after her 7-year battle with Alzheimer's. He was able to stay with her the entire time and found it very useful to order food and product deliveries in-home as well as a large variety on-line entertainment.
A friend of ours and her husband ran into a problem that we think could have been alleviated with a couple of iPhone apps.
She was visiting a friend while her husband was at work. Her husband forgot that she was going visiting and assumed she was still at home. He was concerned because she tends to go outside when its cold and icy to feed the birds. When she didn’t answer her cell phone or home phone for several hours, he panicked and called her mother, brother and friends and finally the police.
The problem was that she had turned down the ringer volume and assumed he knew when she was. The solution we have offered them is Apple “Find My Friends” app and “Find My Phone” app. Please check our “Challenge and Solution” page for details
I live in an Active Adult community and I have a neighbor who is almost totally blind. "Betty" has lost all of the sight in one eye due to macular degeneration and has just a tiny bit of vision remaining in the lower corner of her other eye as a result of a tumor. Betty lives alone and is fiercely independent. She has a large circle of friends who provide rides and companionship, but she's becoming more frail in her advancing years and I worry that if she has a problem no one may know about it for awhile.
I live four doors down from Betty and told her about Echo Dots and Echo Show which I learned about from the Technology4Seniors website. Betty agreed to give it a try so with Frank's help and easy to follow instructions I set up an Echo Show, an Echo Dot third generation, and two Echo buttons. I also installed the Alexa app on both her iPhone and my own.
We decided to program the buttons to send me a message "Betty wants you to call her."
We placed one Echo button on the arm of the couch next to the end table where we placed the Echo Show. When Betty pushed the Echo button it flashed several colors (to show it was working) and it sent a message to the Echo Show. The Echo Show then lit up and announced " I sent a text message to Ann to call you."
I immediately got the text message and used the Alexa app to call Betty. When Betty got the call the Alexa Show told her "Call from Ann" and it was up to Betty as to whether she wanted to accept it or not. She said, "Echo, accept call" and there was a brief pause (the Echo Show screen became blurred-I assume that Amazon built in a delay in case the person receiving the call decided that they didn't want to be viewed right then and could exit the call). The screen then became clear and just like in a Facetime call I could see Betty and she could see me.
We placed the other Echo push button in the bathroom and we placed the Echo Dot on her nightstand. Everything is working splendidly. Betty now has peace of mind that she can simply call out for her Amazon devices to call me. I have a key and can unlock the door if need be. I know she should also have a pendant. I'm working on that...
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