What family caregivers may face – not going home anymore

Over 15 million Americans provide unpaid care for a person with Alzheimer’s disease or other dementias. And in 2013, 15.5 million caregivers provided an estimated 17.7 billion hours of unpaid care valued at more than  $220 billion.

The costs for those without assistance is startling – out-of-pocket spending for individuals with Alzheimer’s and other dementias is estimated at $36 billion.

For the Caregiver industry, reports from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predict an increase in the personal and home care aide job category, forecasting this category to be the second fastest-growing job group in the nation over the next decade, rising up 49% by 2022.

Continue reading Caregivers

Choosing a hardware for an Alzhiemer’s-friendly personal Rescue Beacon.

In building FindMe, we started with the assumption that locating the person who was wandering was the only concern, and we decided by build a GPS locator that had a much longer battery life than what we could find on the market. The reason for placing such an emphasis on battery life, was straightforward for us: the adult children of parents with Alzheimer’s were not always living with that parent, and oftentimes they could visit only on weekends.  This meant that the GPS locator we needed to build had to have at least seven days of battery life, compared to the one or two days that were say reported in consumer reviews of existing GPS locators.

Continue reading Choosing a Hardware

For Alzheimer’s: When I get older, losing my hair

Disrupting the 100-year old nursing home industry is more challenging than disrupting the taxi-cab monopolies taken on by Uber.

Notwithstanding the reported 44% rate of abuse in nursing homes, and the common pattern of introducing psychotropic medications to make the residents more pliant and docile, the industry is booming (so many aging baby boomers, after all).

But the Dementia Friendly Community is having success at doing exactly that – disrupting the nursing home industry.

Continue reading When I get older

Why aren’t generic IOT wearables suitable for people living with Alzheimer’s

Sometimes we’re asked “What’s different about FindMe, a Personal Rescue Beacon that protects people from the dangers of hypothermia, heat stroke, hard falls, getting lost, and traffic and water risk, compared to generic GPS/geofence trackers on the market right now?”

Continue reading Suitable Wearables

Why does battery life matter for a Personal Rescue Beacon?

In an interview that FindMe had with Kimberly Kelly, board member of the National Association for Search and Rescue, she pointed out that you need to have at least three days to find and rescue someone who has wandered. And the statistics bear that out.

Continue reading Battery Life

What is Wandering?

Ordinarily, wandering is associated with individuals who are living with Alzheimer’s taking off in some undetermined direction, and continuing until they’re either found–or not. As an illustration, long time Cape Cod reporter, Greg O’Brien explained about his own case of early onset Alzheimer’s, “Sometimes when I am in my boat I want to head out to sea and just keep going.”

Continue reading Wandering is Complicated: Legal and Housing Implications