Senior homes can embrace technology in many ways to elevate and innovate the  lives of their residents. Seniors often complain about a lack of activities and control in their assisted living accommodation. 

Technology is well-poised to eliminate those concerns. This may seem surprising given how seniors and tech don’t tend to go well together but how there are many ways senior homes use technology.

By embracing technology and internet access, the senior homes can improve entertainment avenues, enhance connectivity with their residents’ loved ones, and monitor resident health.

Keep reading to take a look at how senior homes can use today’s technology.

Enhanced Communication

Seniors in assisted living accommodations and senior homes often complain about their family members and grandchildren not visiting them. Despite the presence of other older adults and seniors, they continue to feel lonely and disturbed. Internet access opens up the exciting possibility for video chats and free Skype calls, letting them connect with their children and grandchildren every day.

With video chats, grandparents living in assisted living homes can join their family members on all special occasions, be it a wedding, birthday party, or Thanksgiving dinner. They can also connect with their friends and family members living across the world and enjoy virtual sessions with their doctors and specialists for added convenience.  

Enhanced Fitness

There are numerous apps, tools, and platforms that allow seniors to maintain a robust and easy fitness routine with superior results. Senior home staff and physical fitness professionals often struggle with helping seniors adapt and remain consistent on a fitness regime.

Technology allows seniors to identify the right platform and fitness regime to achieve their physical rehabilitation goals. For instance, numerous senior-focused YouTube channels offer immersive and entertaining workout sessions for groups.

Seniors can also benefit from wearable devices that track their number of steps, physical activity metrics, heart rate, and more. Technology proves instrumental in helping seniors achieve their physical activity requirements to maintain robust health and physical fitness.

Robust Resident Monitoring Standards

It is common for residents to trip, fall off their beds, or suffer a minor injury while walking across the garden. Technological innovations, particularly motion sensors, allow senior homes to adopt robust safety standards and ensure resident safety with far more superior attention.

Motion sensors are increasingly utilized in assisted living facilities as these non-intrusive innovations allow senior home staff to monitor the physical activity of all residents. They work wonders at improving safety standards. The motion sensor alerts the senior home staff when resident falls out of bed while trying to reach for a glass of water on the side table.

It also issues an alert if a resident has been stationary too long, so a staff member can check in and ensure everything is alright.

Dispensing Medicine

Overdosing and underdosing medication is a major challenge for seniors with chronic illnesses in assisted living facilities. The senior home staff doesn’t typically have the medical expertise required to dispense and administer medications efficiently. Many assisted living facilities are embracing digital medication dispensers to solve this problem.

These digital medication dispensers ensure efficiency and accuracy by releasing the correct amount of medication at the right times of day. They also make residents self-sufficient and more in control by providing voice alerts after dispensing the medication dosage. These dispensers also offer reminders and alerts.

Entertainment & Engagement

The world of entertainment is rapidly evolving. Today, there is a plethora of digital tools and entertainment avenues to entertain and engage seniors living in senior homes. They can tune into digital podcasts or catch their favorite season or movie on Netflix. Netflix, Prime TV, and Apple TV, amongst other online streaming services, offer endlessly wide selections of TV shows, movies, and documentaries to keep them hooked.

Seniors can also enjoy social media sites, such as Facebook and Skype, to catch up with their family and friends. They can also even classic boardgames in digital forms, such as chess, Monopoly, alongside puzzle apps

Residents can also tune into online courses, such as MasterClass, and work on building new skills or pursuing a hobby they never had time for earlier. They can sit down to watch documentaries and learn about subjects that pique their interests, such as gardening, astronomy, and more.

Wearable Devices

As mentioned above, wearable devices are an innovation that is being increasingly adopted by senior homes and assisted living facilities worldwide. These wearables are designed as bracelets featuring built-in radio-frequency chips to track the health metrics of a resident. These wearables offer detailed insights into sleep patterns, eating patterns, physical activity, heart rate, blood pressure, blood sugar, and more.

These devices are highly beneficial for residents combatting chronic ailments and need their health metrics to be monitored regularly. Such devices can also be synced with the wearable devices distributed to the staff members to efficiently evaluate and monitor the activities and health of a patient with a few simple clicks. Such wearable devices issue alerts in case of complications.

Summing Up

Assisted living facilities and senior homes are also adopting smart home technology to make residents more self-reliant and less dependent on the staff. While smart home technology is generally targeted at the millennials and Gen Z, experts believe it has much to offer enhanced access to improve senior living standards.

For instance, Amazon and Google’s voice-activated smart technology will give them the control they crave, allowing them to use their voices to use electronics like the TV or lights.