Question: My parents are in their early 80s. They are in fair health, although Dad needs a walker to get around and Mom is forgetful. They are adamant about staying in the home they’ve owned for more than 50 years, but my siblings and I worry about whether they can really continue to take care of themselves. Are there resources out there that we can consult about this?

Answer: Older folks invariably want to stay in their own homes for as long as possible, and numerous studies indicate that this is best for everyone concerned. The trick, however, is being able to determine when to call in help.

We usually recommend that adult children hire a good geriatric care manager (www.caremanager.org) to make an assessment of the elderly parent(s) and suggest a course of action. We still think this is a good idea. But questions like yours led us to a new study by the Georgia Institute of Technology. The study results indicate that older adults are willing to give up some privacy – if it enables them to remain independent longer.

The study results, presented in April in Vienna, Austria, at an international conference on computer/human interaction, illustrate “how important it is to older adults to stay in their homes rather than move into some type of assisted-living housing,” said Wendy Rogers, a professor of psychology at Georgia Tech. For this study, funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, researchers invited 44 adults aged 65 to 75 to tour Georgia Tech’s Broadband Institute Residential Laboratory and view new technologies designed by computing researchers to help people “age in place.”

The technologies ranged to low to high levels of intrusiveness, and included:
• Cook’s Collage, which photographs people during meal preparation and displays the cook’s six most recent actions on a flat-panel display mounted over the countertop. The idea is to prevent distracted chefs from forgetting what actions they’ve already taken.
• Digital Family Portrait, which helps out-of-town family members keep an eye on aging relatives. A display monitor hangs in the caregiver’s home and displays a static photo of the older relative. This photo is surrounded by a digital-image frame whose icons change daily to reflect information about the older adult’s life, such as general activity level.
• Gesture Pendant, an ornament worn on the body that senses hand movements. Different hand movements activate different items in the house, such as the television, the lights, etc. This could be useful to someone who suffers from reduced mobility, such as your Dad.

The adult participants in the study “were more willing to embrace a technology if they perceived a need and if they had some degree of control,” Rogers said. Some of the older adults, she added, actually felt more secure if someone was monitoring them.

Rogers told NextSteps that her team of psychologists, computer scientists, and engineers plans to do a larger study, probably in 2005, which will include a wider ranger of older individuals, such as those with lower education levels, those who are frail, and those who are already living in assisted-living environments. Their findings could be used in the development of commercial products at some later date. (Georgia Tech does not develop commercial products themselves.) For more information on the study, click here

So stay tuned to these and other developments that could help your parents stay at home longer. But in the meantime, find a good geriatric care manager.