Look more closely at the 65+ age range. Not a trivial group — 39 million last year, a mere 13% of the US population today, but surging forward with bulging baby boomer segment additions. Of the current 39 million, 5.8 million are 85+, representing the fastest-growing age cohort in the US. What do the 85+ have in common with the 65-75-year-olds? Aside from being lumped by NPD and media into one bucket, that is. Survival, for one thing — if you live to be 65 in the United States, the odds are good that you’ll make it to at least 83.5 — for those who reach age 85, women will live another 6.8 years, men between 5 and 7 more years. Oops. The spread between 65 and 90+ is looming a bit large — a 90-year-old may very well have children who are 65 to 70.  Surely, these two ends of an age spectrum need different products, but more to the point, so many in the range of 65-and-beyond will need to care for and help those with long life expectancies, not to simply survive, but to live as well as possible (seeHuffington Post and Silver Planet for some inspiration about living those extra years).

Reading about the crisis in Japan, let’s not abandon the real elderly. Left behind in retirement facilities, nursing homes, perhaps making up a disproportionate percentage of those who are counted among lives lost, one has to wonder. Consider those in the US — in senior housing, retirement communities, and condominium complexes throughout places like Arizona and Florida, where the adult children may be unlikely to reside; where hurricanes, tornados, flooding, sudden cold, or failing air conditioning are crisis conditions for the elderly. Does everyone who knows someone living alone and away from their family also know what the escape or support plan is to help them in the event of a disaster? What are the top ways to monitor and stay connected to them?

Hearing, monitoring, seeing, connecting. These are key tasks that matter as life span lengthens and maybe even marketers get wise to sub-segmentation of the oldest age ranges — the upper end of the 65+. So usable telephones (land and cell) top the list, usable for those with arthritis and Parkinson’s, able to persist on battery, with multiple and easily charged mobile batteries. Captioned telephones for the hearing-impaired — many of whom do not wear hearing aids until long past the point of enjoying phone conversations. Then add magnification and Internet-enabled cameras — I was pleased to see that the latest Humana/Care Innovations pilot of Intel’s Health Guide includes a camera — hopefully the pilot in Tampa will include a sizable number of the real elderly. But then add computers and Internet service for the real elderly so that they can see and be seen on webcams — what’s it mean when a Google search of ‘Help seniors access Internet’ returns three Australian web addresses in the first seven results? Or check out SeniorNet (targeting the 50+? Huh?) when there is no listed Florida Learning Center and only 2 in Arizona? When (Pew Research) reports that only 30% of those age 75 and older go online and only 20% have home broadband (eliminating the usefulness of Skype and clear images of family members). When AARP lumps the real elderly into the 50+ Digital Divide and, unfortunately, appears these days to set survey (and enrollment) sights set on the 45+?

If you think the Internet doesn’t matter for the real elderly, think again. I am also reminded of one of the big disasters in the US — 9/11 — and how cell phones and land-lines services that day became useless as networks clogged under the weight of worry. But as I recall, AOL Instant Messenger was up and accessible by dispersed family members throughout a very long day. And I think about Facebook messages from Americans in Japan alerting their families when they became unreachable by phone. And I wonder how many of the real elderly were reachable through an Internet connection during either crisis?

• Remote home monitoring got buzz and investment. Venture capitalists stepped up for remote monitoring: Healthsense received venture funding, as did WellAWARE. Numerous news outlets pointed a consumer flashlight onto GrandCare Systems and this still fairly narrow market, now blurred further this year with remote health monitoring (aka telehealth, wireless health) — now in some cases reimbursed due to vital sign monitoring during post-hospital rehab stays.

PREDICTION: 2011 will further blur the distinction between remote health monitoring and passive activity monitoring. Given the fertile health technology marketplace of grants for trial projects among non-profit organizations, my take is that vendors would do well to add device enablement (like blood pressure and weight scale), seek FDA approval and throw in the towel on preserving a standalone category.

• The PERS market got a Philips auto alert boost. In January, Philips launched Lifeline with Auto Alert for automatic fall-detecting PERS devices, likely at the expense of its own Lifeline device sales. By creating market awareness (yuk, that home page is still bleak, bleak, bleak!) about passive fall detection and notification, Philips offered help for competitors Wellcore, Halo Monitoring and others with fall detection capability. Meanwhile, mobile PERS with GPS location identification continued its move (pun intended) forward and outside the home — striving to appeal to a younger and more out-and-about population.

PREDICTION: In 2008, PERS market growth was predicted to be flat — Parks Associates asserted a $600 million flat line, supplanted by a corresponding growth in passive remote monitoring. Not so, it turns out. Today PERS is approximately a $1 billion market — and while there are a number of new remote monitoring entrants, passive remote monitoring is still below the adoption radar. What’s next? I am waiting (and may have to wait well past 2011) for elder-focused applications and trained carrier call centers that leverage the built-in accelerometers, GPS trackability, and (ha, ha!) ease of use of cell and smart phones. In the meantime, PERS sales will grow, not as fast, but steadily as the population ages into frailty — remembering that 85+ is the fastest growing segment, that PERS contracts typically last only for two years.

• Games got gestures — someday seniors will benefit. With the launch of Microsoft’s Kinect interface, teens got a chance to jump higher while playing group Xbox games, including the ability to play group games simultaneously from separate locations.  But speaking instructions and using hand gestures is an important user interface change that can transform the accessibility of apps — check out this MIT Kinect browser navigation accomplishment posted just minutes (it seemed) after Kinect sold out at Target.

PREDICTION: Hand gestures, recognizable features, and spoken commands — app vendors, go forth and create! At least 5 vendors focused on the older adult market will offer a Kinect-enabled application by end of 2011. Throw in specific health and chronic disease management — many times five. Design-for-all apps, lots and lots.

• The iPad marginalized the need for an annoying PC operating system computer. In January, the iPad announcement looked pretty impressive… and the screen looked very pretty.  Well, doubt no more about boomers — these things are everywhere, boomers seem to love them and they (or their many, many imitators) are migrating into the homes and lives of older people — someone besides Apple will tell us how many.  These types of devices will, over time, make us forget that we used to need simplification software to overlay on top of complex and consumer-hostile devices.

PREDICTION: In our near-term lifetime, older adults depending on your children or Best Buy to upgrade Windows patches may become a distant memory. The same Microsoft that brought this brilliant Kinect interface into the market will hobble out its own tablet next week at CES. Maybe it will be foisted on enterprises through IT mandate, but among an older population for home use, forget it. Even though folks may have told AARP they won’t buy one, they just didn’t know what they were saying — AARP surveyed too early (June) about a product that had just began shipping (late March).  Newer products from other vendors will also make the concept of an operating system upgrade either quaint or invisible.

• eReaders eliminated the need for reading glasses. Meanwhile, as you can plainly see in airports, planes, trains, and TV commercials, the eReader (Nook, Shmook, etc.) is taking a big chunk out of physical books. As my husband has noted with his free Kindle reader for Blackberry, if you like to read, eReaders mean never having to search for your reading glasses.

PREDICTION: We are in a silly ‘i-this’ and ‘e-that’ phase right now — vendors may fight to the death to keep it that way, maybe even giving eReader devices away with a purchase of 10 or more books? But in the end, it’s pointless — eReader software will be on all tablets, game controllers, portable and phone-like devices.

• Caregiving software — is this really a standalone market? Along with initiatives to help caregivers, caregiving applications sprouted in 2010, but is this a category? With software as a service, these apps really seem to be functionality that is part of a larger caregiver portal, possibly white-labeled by a service or healthcare insurer/provider (like Kaiser Permanente) or offered by a home care agency as part of a solution that includes devices — including home health monitoring and/or web cameras.

PREDICTION: For those caregiving applications that are part of the professional caregiver services toolkit, 2011 will be the year in which the largest home care agencies (family/companion and health) expand their tech reach. They will include standard caregiving functionality that updates and includes family participation. They will consider Skype (or its equivalent) to be a core competence of Geriatric Care Managers — as with SeniorBridge. They will replace the requisite post-visit telephone call tag with the kind of simultaneously-viewable update that families can create with a portal like CaringBridge.

• Dementia undermines aging in place. All remote, health, and gadgety tech notwithstanding, let’s consider Alzheimer’s and the CDC’s statement that “nearly half of those age 85 and older may have the disease.” (Feel free to spend some time online trying to nail down that definition, the percentage, and/or its source, but I digress…) Wander prevention technology presumes a willing and available responder to receive those close-by alerts or forming a relationship with the local police to find the missing. It presumes someone is wearing a tag, device, necklace or bracelet. But we’re better at locating prisoners and dogs than we are at preventing people from wandering to the point of danger.

PREDICTION: During 2011, more vendors will emerge with unobtrusive tracking devices linked to smart notification software that incorporates a hierarchy of responders and a multiplicity of ways to reach them. Hey, maybe we’ll even see that GPS shoe (as of today predicted by Foot.com to ship in early February 2011). If there’s no associated service, though, the shoe will be absolutely useless.

• Vendors of age-related products and services still struggle to address the market properly. The pathway to sales is littered with the simultaneous obstacles of poor economic climate, limited funding, few solutions-versus-products, long sales cycles in many cases, complex decision-making relationships (adult child? senior? professional caregiver? who?) and new management learning curves. To tackle some of these obstacles and promote sharing of lessons learned, last year’s Silvers Summit spawned an AgeTek Alliance of vendors and supportive organizations, which will this year will hold training and networking sessions at CES.

PREDICTION: 2011 will (hopefully) see more coherent and reusable channel cultivation, more multi-vendor product bundling, growth in training of service providers and resellers, and greater awareness of appropriate tech among referrers like doctors, GCMs, and senior housing organizations. In 2009, I speculated about certification of service providers in technology for aging in place — in 2010, NAHB’s CAPS — Certified Aging in Place Specialist) program wisely split into two parts — Marketing and Communication Strategies for Aging and Accessibility (CAPS I) and Design/Build Solutions for Aging and Accessibility (CAPS II) — the latter includes an assessment of needs which will, hopefully, include tech communication requirements. In 2011, there will also be forward movement that exposes minimum product requirements — like usability, ease of installation, and ease of operation — through ever-greater exposure of actual user experiences. Although it makes sense to consolidate objectives and outcomes among age-related consortia and groups, that is highly unlikely in the near term. Finally, for those of you considering entrance into this market, please follow these Ten Tips.

• Bad prescription — hospitals and the elderly. Maybe you missed it a few days ago — more than 1 in 5 of those admitted to hospitals (2008) were over the age of 75. And those aged 85+ were 2.5 times as likely to need nursing care upon discharge as those age 65-74. Interestingly, Microsoft’s HealthVault Community Connect, “a portal solution that helps connect healthcare institutions to their referring communities and patients,” according to Microsoft’s Luisa Monge, is just beginning to be deployed as part of hospital admission — where discharge planning must begin if it is ever to function properly.

HOPE: To get to the hospital, someone has to call 911 (or drive in the car). My dream is that whoever does the calling or driving has the ability to produce a list of current medications on a sheet of paper that has all identifying information, including the name of the doctor, next of kin and contact info. This is so low-tech — if the very old can’t stay out of hospitals, can they at least arrive armed with their own data?

• Design for all or design for aging? Finally, let’s tackle the thorny issue of whether there is such a thing as ‘tech for seniors’ or should all tech incorporate certain core principles — in effect, ‘design-for-all?’  How about devices with good lighting, adjustable font, audible display options, color adjustments? And as Dr. Joseph Coughlin noted, shouldn’t tech be more FUN to use, not just utilitarian?

HOPE: In 2011, let’s hope that marketing senior-related products doesn’t have to be fear-focused to effectively reach the consumer.  Let’s hope that it becomes less and less important to design tech exclusively for the use of older adults. Let’s hope that everything we use is wonderfully easy to figure out, that the buttons on our new TV remotes are bigger, that configuring web-enabled television can be done in fewer than 5 perilous steps (this requirement was comfirmed by Best Buy), that the user manual is only a nice-to-have that comes with our phones, readers, tablets, and games. Let’s hope that if we want the full-featured, heavy-duty sophisticated options — or we want tech to be friendlier in the event that our dexterity, vision, or hearing declines ever so slightly — that even though you can’t always get (exactly) what you want, you can usually get what you need.

Editor’s Note: If you haven’t visited Laurie Orlov’s blog, Aging In Place Technology Watch, you should. When it comes to understanding technology as it relates to aging, there is NO better source of information.

I (Tom Mann of Love and Company) recently presented “Improving Marketing and Sales for your Retirement Community, CCRC, Assisted Living, or Skilled Nursing Care Facility” at the LifeSpans educational seminar. Here’s the PowerPoint I presented with transcriptions!

Boomers and seniors flock, and maybe they stay – who knows? So we know that baby boomers and seniors represent the fastest-growing (not largest) age group flocking to Facebook, because this is an oft-quoted statistic that is surprisingly tough to nail down. Here’s a 2009 stat on women age 55+ as the fastest growing demographic, for example. According to Nielsen, seniors age 65+ pick Facebook as one of their top Internet destinations. And according to eMarketer.com in December, 2009, 46% of online boomers age 44-62 and 36% of those 63-75 had a social networking site profile. Note the word ‘online’. So far, I have not seen a report on frequency of update or access — hope eMarketer.com checks that out this year.

Now comes the AARP Loneliness Study. AARP is pushing down the survey age and definition of ‘older’ people, from 50 down to 45. Pretty soon no one will be younger than all of these so-called older people. Published last month, a survey of 3012 adults age 45 and above revealed that 35% are lonely (using UCLA’s index of attributes of loneliness.) Surprisingly, and supported by the Gallup study about overall happiness, those in the younger age range of 45-49 were lonelier (43%) than those age 70-plus (25%). According to the study, those married, wealthier, healthier, who volunteer more and have been in their homes more than one year are less likely to be lonely. Maybe the older folks are onto something — 62% of the 65+ population isn’t online. As for the use of social media (aka Facebook), lonely respondents were more likely to agree with the statement “I have fewer deep connections now that I keep in touch with people using the Internet.” Interestingly, AARP’s website did not report that 57% of both categories of responders, that is those self-identified as either lonely and not lonely, said that they never participate on social networking sites. Note the word ‘never’.

Facebook manages the Rolodex of acquaintances. There’s something ironic about Facebook terminology — ‘friends’ who you ‘poke’, versus the more civil LinkedIn use of the phrase ‘trusted connections.’ In the October 4th New Yorker article, Malcolm Gladwell draws a distinction between actual activism and what he describes as ‘weak activism’, observing that “Facebook activism succeeds not by motivating people to make a real sacrifice but by motivating them to do the things that people do when they are not motivated enough to make a real sacrifice.” And his comment that “Facebook is a tool for efficiently managing your acquaintances, for keeping up with the people you would not otherwise be able to stay in touch with” resonates with me, especially after watching this movie. Young people are resilient: maybe they know that their hundreds of Facebook friends aren’t the same as actual friends who would join you at a meeting or in a volunteer effort, help you move your belongings to a new location, or even eat a meal with you on a Sunday night. Older people are less resilient and perhaps after registering their profile, they secretly wonder to themselves — what’s the point of this, life is short, let’s go out for lunch.

Editor’s Note: Carolina’s calling. If you have anything to do with active aging or retirement communities, you don’t want to miss the  National Active Retirement Association Conference in Columbia, South Carolina – Wednesday, October 20 through Friday, October 22  at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center. I hope to see you there!

PS    If you are going, be sure to drop me a line at Tom(at)TRMann.com.

The caveats and conundrums qualify each rendering of buzz. The Hilary Stout article cited several of the almost clichéd concerns expressed by various University research experts: worries about privacy (‘big brother is watching you’), false alerting (70-year-old mom was painting the sun room, not having a heart attack), parental resistance to the tech (being bothered by it, or being bothered by their children who want them to use it.)  Meanwhile, the Leland article raised cautions about price and lack of reimbursement, whether the technology monitoring would let adult children off the hook for visiting their parents. And in September 2009, Business Week quoted IDC’s Scott Lundstrom, vice-president for research at IDC Health Insights: “Right now this is a niche market made up of affluent people who want to monitor their parents. The technology is going nowhere without a reimbursement model that supports it.” Yeah, yeah, yeah, but why?

So let’s swat our way through the thicket of buzz and caveats.  What will make the market for technologies for aging in place, or the inverse, technology to help with caregiving of aging parents, or the market’s largely overlapping segment, telehealth, become mainstream enough to be a given, expected to be available, and NOT newsworthy as a ‘new’ category? 

1.  Wanted, a viable channel strategy.  While it is possible that family members may hop onto the Internet and search for a remote monitoring system for their aging parents, more likely a member of the senior value chain (the industry) finds families like those in the Times article through local activities and local contact.  Systems need to be installed; high quality service must be provided; products must be leasable and returnable; pricing must enable revenue sharing; products must have easy-to-integrate interfaces — see more of this very important list provided on this blog by contributing integrator, Susan Estrada from Happy Home.

2.  Wanted, insurance reimbursement or viable pricing.  Studies continue to launch here there and everywhere to re-prove yet again the benefits of telehealth and remote monitoring of all types.  Because insurance companies and government agencies are not yet convinced, even with FCC and FDA enthusiasm, technologies that include or integrate with chronic disease monitoring fall into (or are placed there by vendors, actually) into health, disease management categories that health professionals must quantify financial benefits again and again to convince those who may be perpetually doubtful, possibly due to lack of endorsement.  As one research interviewee told me once: a dollar saved in the healthcare industry is a dollar lost by someone.”  In the absence of this elusive reimbursement, pricing must fit into the budgets of families or those who provide services in order to become mainstream.

3.  Wanted, a tech-smart senior value chain.  Hopefully some of the buzz from the Times caught the ear of what I refer to as the ‘senior value chain’ – the multiple and diverse organizations and people who really want to help support aging seniors. These include: caregivers, geriatric care managers, social workers, discharge planners, home care agencies, independent and assisted living providers. Do all members of this chain view staying current and knowledgeable about technology tools as part of their job? Even as aging in place (aka not moving) becomes a near-national mantra among families and seniors, even as home care agency businesses grow at the expense of nursing homes and assisted living, the technology categories described in the Times articles (past and present) are not mainstream among home care agency providers, for example. So families mull over what will be happening in this largely tech-free world on the off-days, and off-hours when aides are not present or don’t appear.

4.  Wanted, the ‘right’ products and services.  So let’s say the above 3 issues were all non-issues. We still have no really clear expectations of what we (the senior value chain) want from the products and services themselves.  We have phones with no GPS, we have GPS tracking without phones, we have PERS devices that are mobile without fall detection, we have products with fall detection that not mobile-enabled. We have remote monitoring devices that cost hundreds and remote monitoring devices that cost thousands of dollars. We have HIPAA-compliant and FDA-approved, and we have no-and-no to either. We are targeting markets of the still-well-enough to drive, or is it the frail-enough to be home bound? Products can be marketed direct to consumers, or no, should vendors seek distribution? Vendors must decide, channels must be recruited, manufacturing decisions must be made, but this is an industry of uncertainty about the correct strategy — because the market expectations are not yet ‘mainstream’.

The technology isn’t really new, but a mature market isn’t really here, either.  I love buzz — it is energizing, exciting, and validating for what those who are working hard in this industry — and it energizes me as well. But a few (how many?) years from now, it would be great to read stories about how adoption of all of the technology categories discussed in the two Times articles last week grew by leaps and bounds, practices are standardized, training of professionals incorporates those practices, senior well-being is clearly better in the study groups versus the control groups, and the young engineering talent of the world recognizes the opportunity to enter this well-established and mainstream market.

Line up to learn your longevity likelihood.  Aren’t you just loving the opportunity we will soon have to download that free genetic marker test kit, the one that with 77% accuracy will tell whether we will live past 100? Boston University scientists have ‘no plans to profit’ from the results, but they will make the kit available later this summer. (Warning: analysis of the results will be costly.) I am so struck by how the law of unintended consequences could play out, especially in areas of insurance — as with a home test kit for Alzheimer’s, people might be more likely to purchase long-term care insurance. With a longevity test on the market, how long will the term need to be in term insurance? Taking it a step further, should insurance companies offer free kits as a marketing device? Should your doctor know that you’ve taken such a test? Should a health insurer know? What happens to rates, deductibles and lifetime caps? What kind of housing and support systems would we want if we knew we could live to 100 or more (or if we knew we would suffer from Alzheimer’s)? What would our families do with that information?

Which brings me to home care — what we want. So let’s just imagine that many more of us are going to make it to 100, that we fear nursing homes and obsessively want to stay in our own dangerous-but-familiar houses. Of course, we will want to be there all alone in our later years, visited only by home health or companion aides from the growing home care industry (hopefully they won’t visit us too often, though, and draw attention from the SEC). Hopefully the aides are background-vetted, well-paid, well-trained, dedicated and conversational, and are the low-turnover folks. Hopefully they will take us out to events and social activities, make sure that we are well-monitored and Skype-connected to our far-flung relatives, if not in the home then by driving us to places like this just-opening and Skype-enabled Clearwater Aging Well Center.  Hmm. Do you believe this?

We have the time to craft a better experience. Let’s face it, the lonely boomer at home at 100 is unlikely: our mis-managed bodies may not permit it — even if the above scenario was realistic. That doesn’t mean we aren’t going to live far beyond ye olde expectations. If we knew how long we might live, we also need to imagine and advocate for lower-cost, longevity-friendly housing for those ‘middle’ decades of the 70′s and 80′s, but that will house us when we’re 95 and low on money. We need a rethink of nursing homes, blending them into services for seniors in a community — so that they move past the current shrinking anathema status. That might mean more consolidation, along with blending of skilled services first into communities, and then those services into group housing that will match our budgets and interest profiles. 

Care we want — can we get it? Where we’ll be living, the aides are kind to us: they form friendships and support each other and are well-supported by management. They enable us to find friends and continue to do activities we like — with others, not alone. Where we’ll be living, monitoring our well-being will be welcome and standard; enabling our tech-connectedness will be understood and supported by management and staff. When we move in, we won’t need to take our tech gadgetry with us — they’ll be part of the residence, with Kindles and Nooks in the library, wireless in our home, and appropriate use of video. Maybe useful and friendly robots (not just Paro-fluffy-friendly) will free up the repetitive and low-skilled labor, doing so at a low cost, freeing up staff to focus on higher-skilled tasks. This has happened in every single other industry in the past 50 years — why not this one?

We are in a crisis of mistaken expectation — thus tech opportunity.  In today’s economically challenged world, we suffer from a lack of product and service marketer realism (see Tom Mann’s Mature Market blog about senior housing developers) all along the continuum of care to the consumer. Everyone wants things the way they were (as in the above senior housing example) or they don’t know what they want but are shocked at what they actually get, whether it is with the doctor, the hospital, or the home care agency. Those who are creating and selling tech-enabled products and services have an opportunity to sell into the gap — whether it is in cost-reduction, family expectation management, or enabling standardized back office consolidations for service providers — who want to enable a better longevity experience at a lower cost.

Mature Market Experts – more news and stats you can use on boomers, seniors and the mature market – The BBC Brain Training study — let’s flip it around: There’s no such thing as bad publicity.  This study is being reprinted on every website that has even a remote connection to boomers, seniors, or game-playing or is suffering from a slow news day. (Although you have to wonder how senior housing executives will react to seeing it published in McKnight’s). So I am not going to set foot into the quagmire about whether this is a good study or a bad study — as observed by Alvaro Fernandez of SharpBrains and Steven Aldrich of Posit Science.  I will also bet that this study will not slow the cognitive fitness market down, which SharpBrains sizes as $1 billion within 5 years — you have to work hard to slow a market that fits so well with the fear, uncertainty, and doubt of baby boomers about aging and brain-related impacts. And like all studies (wine is good for you, wine is bad for you, more exercise, but not too much), no doubt there will be another study contradicting it soon enough. Instead, let’s turn it around.

Those who surfed the web for general knowledge improved at finding it.  Looking at the BBC study news item, let’s read this sentence: “A third control group was asked to browse the Internet and seek out answers to general knowledge questions. The results are clear,” said Adrian Owen, a neuroscientist at the Medical Research Council, in a statement. “Statistically, there are no significant differences between the improvements seen in participants who played our brain-training games, and those who just went on the Internet for the same length of time.”

What’s that mean? So let’s just assume that surfing the Internet reduces risk of depression, that looking for information online improves your skill at finding it, that taking advantage of access to 62,000 health-related websites makes one a better-informed healthcare consumer, that using connected health technologies can help us ‘age well in a connected world’ (Cisco). To name just a very few endorsements of Internet access for older adults. What if we use the BBC study to confirm that healthy older adults who surf the web seeking knowledge will get more skilled at doing this if they practice — and that if they practice, they might learn a new skill, reduce depression, or even connect to other people who share their interests?

That sounds like a GOAL to me.  Maybe a computer, a broadband connection (see Project Goal), and some training could help older adults just improve the quality of their lives? What if warding off brain-related problems and decline could be improved simply by access to knowledge and something interesting? Now that Project Goal has launched to improve broadband access and use among older adults in the US, how about its sponsors getting together to launch a baseline study that evaluated all of these factors before and after acquiring broadband access? Who knows, maybe a side effect of that access will turn out to be improved cognitive health?

Work — what they (sort of) mostly do and expect to retire at 66.  Now here’s where things get interesting: 8% work part-time, 6% are self-employed, 5% are looking for work, 7% are on disability, and 8% are fully retired.  Let’s turn that around and see it for what it is:  only 60% work full time for companies! Somewhat ironically, they expect to retire at 66, although 50% plan to either take their social security benefits earlier (before they are eligible for full benefits) at age 65 or get the partial benefit at age 62. Delusionally-speaking, 69% have set the date for taking social security as exactly the same as they said it was two years ago — despite declining value of their assets and the state of the economy, not to mention their level of employment.

What, me worry?  Here’s where the delusional part really begins in earnest. Sixty-six percent of them have one or both living parents. Half of them have children still living at home. But what are they concerned with — despite these two arguably significant future care-related issues? Twenty-five percent worry about affordability of their own health care, and only 18% of the respondants worry about remaining useful. Only 15% imagine they will want to or have to work part-time in their retirement years; only 13% of them worry about funding long-term care needs, and only 12% of them are concerned with outliving their money.

Middle boomers — read the older boomer tea leaves. In another MetLife report from October, the real world of older boomers is explored in the pleasantly-titled Buddy Can you Spare A Job? Three-quarters of today’s older boomer workers expect to work for pay after retirement, but fewer than 35% report actually making it happen.  Meanwhile, turns out that working in retirement correlates with better health. From this, we can conclude that older boomers need the money. Middle boomers will need the money too, and not just for their own health care costs. And it doesn’t hurt that working can be engaging, that it provides you with a purpose, and that it keeps your mind from rotting.

If you can, sit down at the piano.  For several years, I played the piano in my mother’s nursing home, where ladies with Alzheimer’s — who never spoke or who only swore — would suddenly break out in song. My favorites and theirs? Gershwin’s “Someone to Watch Over Me”, Blue Moon, or George M. Cohan’s “Over There.” Eventually I assembled their favorites and mine into a book that could provide one hour of great music — people would dance, my mother would sing along, and all would be clapping wildly at the end during “It’s A Grand Old Flag.”

Or send in your iPod. If you can’t play the piano or don’t have one nearby, here’s another option. I was delighted to read that the actual effect on the brain that I observed is now documented by scientists — and actually improves mood, cognitive function and taps long-dormant memories.  And the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function, http://www.imnf.org, founded at Beth Abraham Health Services in the Bronx, NY, will program a customized iPod based on an individual’s musical tastes.  (Personally, I think they’re missing a few songs.) They are also looking for donated iPods to use for those who can’t afford.

Musically inclined — here’s another career change for you.  Apparently music therapy isn’t more widely used with Alzheimer’s patients because of a lack of manpower. There are only about 5,000 certified music therapists and fewer than 20% work with geriatric patients. The IMNF launched the ‘send in’ program to help bring music therapy into patients’ homes. So for you career-changers who are musically inclined, go for it.

Editor’s Note (Tom Mann) – Laurie’s blog is on the money. I’ve seen the power of music invigorate healthy, independent retirement community residents … ignite movement to assisted living residents … and restore spirit to skilled nursing care patients. If you want to see a great program in action, take a look at this short video on Conductorcise that NBC’s Today Show ran.

Full Disclosure: Conductorcise is a client of TR Mann Consulting. That being said, their program is amazing.

Even centenarians read e-mail and web surfing keeps the aging brain active. The Evercare survey of 100 healthy hundred-year-olds could really look like a trend to technology optimists like me. You may remember that 19 percent of responders use cell phones and 7% were using e-mail. And of course we know (studies show this through age 76) that surfing the web is good for the aging brain. But let’s not confuse technology optimism with reality. Questions in my mind remain about the oldest among us:

1. Who is the customer? I visited a Selfhelp independent living complex in Queens today, where I had a pleasant chat with a 90-year-old woman who still walks 6 blocks to the library for a concert, plays Mahjong with her friends daily and does her own shopping. She had QuietCare motion sensors throughout her apartment. I tried to interest her in the concept of a cell phone since her friends have them — no need, she said. Her dial wall telephone kept her nicely in touch with her adult children — when she is in. What about a computer?  She smiled very graciously and told me that she took the training and can’t see the point. Online Mahjong? Order her groceries? E-mail with her kids? No thanks, she smiled. [Note: And Selfhelp has the wonderful benefit of a full-time tech administrator]. 
2. What is the profile of those most served? On the other hand, home bound seniors — those who are visited by care or case managers, who don’t get out of their apartments to the library or anywhere else — seem like obvious candidates to use technology. But could you push a Quiet Care (or WellAWARE or  Healthsense or GrandCare) system into the home of the most stubbornly independent? Who will pay for a home bound 90-year-old’s system? How will they find out about such a risk-avoiding technology? And as in this example, if they are healthy and active, is it necessary? Reassuring? Superfluous?
3. What is the compelling argument about cost of computing? Let’s assume that you could persuade a) the very independent that they would enjoy a computer, that you could encourage the b) frail and home bound (or their families) that an enormous social benefit could be realized with a computer or c) that hospitalization could be avoided with home monitoring, as studies have shown.  Who buys the computer? Who pays the bill for tech support?  Who provides the tech support arrangement or covers the ongoing service fee? Perhaps grants and state funds can help — as in the case of Selfhelp in New York and NewCourtland in Philadelphia. 
4. Are adult children the right customers for home monitoring? I was reminded of this when a friend told me about his still-sharp 94-year-old father and 89-year-old mother who has mild memory impairment — both of whom separately suffered bad falls in their house — neither were discovered right away. She wasn’t noticed by her husband who had the TV at high volume and can’t hear well. And on another day, he fell backwards off his chair and couldn’t get up until someone looked in on him.  Meanwhile, the adult children are trying very hard not to interfere with their parents’ ‘independence’ and denial, recognizing a crisis is looming.

For the oldest, the profile of receptiveness and access appears narrow. So I wonder. Today, if you have technology advocacy in senior housing AND social work AND seniors are receptive AND family members are aware and interested AND a payer can be found, then 85-and-older individuals may encounter the risk avoidance of home monitoring systems. Similarly, access to a computer and the internet is constrained by awareness, financial capability, availability of tech support, and, not least, adequate training. 

Solutions — more needed. Here are a few thoughts. I would like to see large corporate users of PCs examine their technology refresh cycles (typically 3 years) and donate their computers to senior centers. I would like to see volunteer networks of tech-smart individuals (including retirees) formed into well-organized clusters around neighborhood senior housing, homecare organizations and senior centers. AARP could be that organizing entity, although its center of age gravity appears headed downward.

I would like to see computer vendors like HP, Microsoft, Dell, IBM, follow the example of Verizon and HopeLine (for victims of domestic violence): donate technology to senior centers, but go one step further — and donate train-the-trainer time and fund videos of training that can be circulated. Pay for public service advertising that could get the attention of adult children. Remember that 1 out of 2 baby boomers has at least one living parent. The odds are good that this parent may be one of the 5.3 million age 85 or older, the fastest growing age segment.

People will age longer at home, but it won’t be pretty. This year we know according to an AARP public policy study, that 89% of people of age 50+ want to stay in their own homes. MetLife Mature Market Institute found the same thing. News article after article has confirmed that aging in place is a trend that is happening, maybe fueled by a real estate slump. Remodeling of Peter Pan houses is taking off.  Meanwhile, January 1, 2011, the first wave of baby boomers turns 65. Despite our never-get-old mentality (60 is the new 40, 80 is the new 60, etc), when you’re not 64 anymore, you slip into a new and not entirely problem-free life stage.

The post boomer demographic is becoming senior. That’s the age in which the majority will have 2 chronic conditions — perhaps arthritis, diabetes or heightened risk of heart disease. It’s the demographic in which risk of Alzheimer’s disease spikes (1 in 8 are likely to acquire, putting the total for baby boomers who suffer from it or a related dementia at 10 million, or twice the current population with Alzheimer’s of 5.2 million). It’s likely that 4.3 million of us (you) will have severe vision impairment. Bad knees, weak hips, poor balance, shaky memory, and fading eyesight.

What technology you need.  Let’s just make a few assumptions. Just to chat with your dispersed family members, never mind research your looming medical issues on the Internet, you need broadband, a home network, a reasonably lightweight laptop, a printer, maybe a touch screen, maybe a built in camera, a decent cell phone with built-in GPS, a low-cost but high function home security system that watches out for your environment, and a good long-distance dialing plan. You are quite willing to plug everything in and turn it on, or maybe hire someone to show up and do it. As you become somewhat frailer, you want a small amount of home automation that doesn’t require an engineer to manage — perhaps automatic temperature controls (you’re in, heat’s on, along with the lights; please reverse this when you’re out.) Eventually you and your family want home monitoring with integrated web camera, motion and fall detection, plus extended PERS (beyond 500 feet).

How about some help from your favorite vendors? Unfortunately, once you own all of the above, from that point on, if it’s computer-related, it’s all about fear and loathing of this ever-more-frustrating junk-to-be. From the ‘Send error report to Microsoft’ to the gotta-hire-a-geek-just-to-print. The silence is deafening from large US-based vendors on how to tackle this pending incompatibility between what we want and how we live with our gear. The super successful Cisco offers only networking products that confound both novice and technical people in their homes. Microsoft is committed to health care, but it’s Guide for Aging Computer Users hasn’t been updated in a year and a half — and there is no other public clue that the company cares about its aging-in-place customers. Meanwhile, Intel cares about aging enough to fund virtual boatloads of research — but actual product development into the market — basically zero. Silence from HP and Dell.  Maybe that’s because only 25% of Windows-based laptop purchasers are over age 50? But 25% is still quite a few laptops, more than 5 million, for example, in 2007 alone).

And a word about Apple. So we know that Apple’s personal computer marketshare has grown to exceed 10%.  And surprisingly, 46% of its buyers are 55 and older (which could possibly be because it’s perceived to be easy to use…but I digress.) Yet Apple’s marketing. Now there’s a contrast.  Baby boomers? Seniors? Aging? Not on your stylish pink MacBook life. How silly is it to ignore nearly half of your buyers and design for appeal to teenagers? Do they think that their 55+ customers just want to look cool? Maybe if they acknowledged the AARP demographic, they could grab another 10% share.

Big vendors should invest in small vendors. This blog is filled with numerous mentions of vendors who offer all of the pieces and parts that we’ll need to age in our own homes. But they’re mostly small. With an infusion of cash (not research… cash!) from the large vendors (like Cisco, Dell, HP, Microsoft, Intel, Apple) — the small vendors could be intentionally included as members of the large vendor’s ‘ecosystem’ (to quote Microsoft). One reason Microsoft invests in Health Vault is because its leaders acknowledge the health-related implications of an aging population. Ditto with Intel (Health Guide) and Cisco (Health Presence). But we’re not going to be sick all of the time! We’re just going to try to live in our homes as connected to others as we can be. Maybe we just need a few investments in the innovations of small startups to ensure that we can.

Should the old get out of the way to make more planet room? Dr. Rich observed that by 2030, 84% of those 65+ will have completed high school and 24% will have a bachelor’s degree, compared with 15% with a college degree today. She noted that tomorrow’s centernarians will be very comfortable with smart phones, Internet, and whatever else is around to enable them to access any information resources — including being very demanding healthcare consumers. She worried that the planet cannot accomodate all of what she terms ‘Geezerdom’ and that perhaps it would make sense for the old to voluntarily ‘get out of the way’ to make room for everyone else.

Evercare’s ‘healthy and articulate’ 100-year-olds are engaged in life now. Who would have thought that half of centenarians are familiar with Ninetendo’s Wii Fit, 21 percent go online, with 10 percent using e-mail weekly, 5 percent watching TV shows, 4 percent downloading music, 3 percent use Twitter, and 2 percent would want an iPod if stranded on a desert island.  Half are walking and hiking, more than half watch quiz shows, and 77% read to stimulate their minds. Both the centernarians and college seniors talk to friends and family to manage stress. Somewhat worrisome for our future, 63% of 100-year-olds said they ‘do something to help others’ as a secondary stress reliever, while 78% of college seniors report that they resort to ‘me time’ to manage stress.

The Judith Rich column includes advice for extending your life span. She quotes a laundry list of widely publicized advice on how to increase your lifespan (15 minutes a day laughing, not smoking, and having a positive outlook add more years). But that list doesn’t include staying connected to community, doing something to help others, staying on top of current news and world events, or using a computer to stay connected to family. Let us remember that the Evercare interviewees are already 100 years old — and this is what a surprising number of them do. Maybe if we want to live to 100, we should emulate them. This being a tech blog — here’s my twist:

Own a computer. I am still hearing that tired line from vendors who make proprietary (non-PC) products that 65+ customers are baffled by computers — that’s why their product isn’t built on a PC. It’s especially ironic to me that telehealth vendors send technically knowledgeable people into the home of 65+ to install monitoring units, will train them on the use of those products, but the PC is just too overwhelming a platform. Enough already. Ignoring the communication needs of your ‘patients’ by giving them single-purpose devices is, politely put, insensitive. Telehealth nurses tell me that patients appreciate monitoring because it shows that someone cares. Imagine their enthusiasm if someone showed them how to use a touch screen for email, sent them some e-mail and showed them how to join an online community for PatientsLikeMe?

Stay informed — news and new ideas. Despite my fondness for them, we probably won’t be reading paper newspapers too much longer — too hard to distribute, too expensive to buy, and tough to get rid of when you’re done reading. But even if you’re still buying them, you can still set automatic e-mail feeds from newspaper companies, set Google Alerts for topics that interest you, and keep up on what’s what in the world of trends and ideas.

Get exercise — physical and brain.  It doesn’t really matter what you do as long as you propel yourself out and about, get your heart going, and give your bones enough stress to keep them from thinning. If where you live means Wii Fit, so be it. And give your brain a workout while you’re at it — anything that involves stimulating, including training your brain to keep your driving skills, or learning something. See stay informed.

Buy smart phones – and keep them charged. No point in getting lost on our way to age 100 — might as well get a BlackBerry or iPhone that gives you portable e-mail access, but where you can also be guided with directions, find a restaurant or gas station, chat with your grandchildren, and even use the phone to call 911 in an emergency. They’re useless when the battery runs out, so manage a charging lifestyle habit early — required for the computer too. See own a computer.

Find like-minded communities. The ‘Lifespan’ advice in Dr. Rich’s column said that going to church regularly adds 3 years to life expectancy.  If we broaden that advice to suggest finding like-minded people — in person, online, on the phone — engagement with others is the key. If we are like 50% of those over 65 today, we will have 2 chronic diseases — even more important to find others who have figured out how best to manage them. See stay informed, buy a smart phone, own a computer.

Consider online medical services. As we near 100, there will be no reason to feel trapped in the house, unable to access medical advice. We can subscribe to online services (phone, e-mail, virtual visits) from companies like TelaDoc or American Well, or LiveNurse on a Jitterbug phone.

My thought — being 100 in this scenario overcomes some of the physical isolation that can result from physical frailty (and losing your nearby friends and family). To me, that looks like a better deal than Dr. Rich’s idea of checking out in order to free up space.

Nursing homes may be the most cost effective, unless… First of all, even though today we seem to be in a ‘no nursing home, no way’ mindset — it may be at some point in the future that the pendulum will swing back to nursing homes as the more economical place to be when 24-hour Medicare-certified care is needed. Once Medicare coverage expires we are going to be abandoned to our own devices…

…Remember that technology has lowered the cost of every other industry. If, as we seem to insist, we want to be in our own homes, then what can drive down the cost of that home care? Will it be telehealth diagnostic technologies for chronic conditions as validated by the VA (see our Trends page)? Will it be smarter in-home monitoring of our well-being — including safety and medication adherance? Will it be comprehensive transportation services like SilverRide that bring us to where we can interact with others? Or will it be virtual interactions — using cheap cameras that connect us to doctors?

To learn more, I guess you’ll just have to watch this space.

Are they wearing airbags?

Mature Market Experts: more mature market news and stats more often – Smart Clothing — Coming To A Store Near You? Not long ago I gave a presentation to a group of seniors about technology for aging in place. One question made me pause: “Why can’t clothing help seniors be safer and more independent?”  Good question. And asked by many in university and corporate research programs. Let’s pick a few — and I am inviting comment posts with additional examples:

1) Last year Apple patented the term ‘smart garments’ enabling a gadget like an iPod to authenticate a connection to a smart garment, perhaps a shoe, indicating to the user ‘the rate of wear of the shoe’. Unapproved garments (not a Nike shoe, perhaps), presumably cannot communicate with the device. This is available today in a Nike-iPod kit to transmit data from the sensor to an iPod to track runner data. Not yet targeting seniors, but Apple clearly saw an opportunity, hence the patent.

2) Also last year, research on the possibility of a human airbag to open in the event of a fall, which I commented on when the press ran with in numerous articles — Prop is the Japanese company that is developing the airbag, targeting frail elderly, people with severe osteoporosis, and people with epilepsy — at roughly $1000, inflates if falling backward, not for sale yet in the US or through a distributor I have found. Please advise if you know where to purchase.

3) Also last year, MIT researchers are using NASA research on balance to develop the iShoe, using technology that was originally developed to help astronauts with balance issues when they return from space. Erez Lieberman and others in a Harvard-MIT Health Sciences Program have applied for a patent, tested the product with 60 seniors, and OhioHealth released a statement in February 2009 saying the product would be available next year (2010) for $100, to be covered by most insurance: “Erez Lieberman’s iShoe contains pressure sensors, a built-in memory and a wireless Bluetooth radio that transmits the data to a laptop or mobile phone.”

4) Announced this year with a prototype expected for later this year and possible release in 2010, the GPS shoe is intended for tracking individuals with Alzheimer’s disease, a collaboration between GTX Corporation and Aetrex (a maker of orthopedic shoes), the GPS shoe is expected to retail for $200-300 and can be accompanied with a tracking service for $20/month. Noted elsewhere in this blog, there are other tracking devices for those with Alzheimer’s, but this is actually a piece of clothing.

5) Halo Monitoring, maker of a wearable chest strap for fall detection, has developed a sports bra version that enables the chest strap to slide into the garment. When a fall is detected, the device transmits to a gateway that can either dial a telephone or use a broadband connection to reach a call center, which then contacts the senior, caregiver, and/or emergency services as appropriate. The pricing is a bit higher than other Personal Emergency Response System (PERS) devices — but the key difference is that the wearer does not need to press a button to call for help.

Looking forward to others — please post!

Guess I was right: Wireless and web-based education are in the sightlines of senior housing executives. This just in — a McKnight’s survey done last fall and now summarized confirms they were anxious and worried about their future. Will they have the ability to compete with staying put, especially as they stare down a future of high-expectation baby boomers?

2013: time to differentiate with services. Execs tidat are struggling to balance and fill their capacity — in a time when seniors can’t sell their homes and afford to move in. That’s also how I read words and behaviors at the recent ALFA conference in Philadelphia. According to this Mather LifeWays Institute on Aging survey representing 435 senior living communities around the country, 22% of communities now offer Web-based education (life-long learning) for residents, but 69% will do so in 4 years. And the percentage of ‘smart homes’, aka those with wireless networks, will grow from 8% to 39% in that same period. This is all part of programs to ‘promote quality of life as residents age in place.’

The future is — well, in the future. The reality is that survey responses are not an obligation to change behaviors or environments and actually make purchases — they simply confirm a non-committed and no- -money-down distant future ‘intent’. So let’s look at the vendor exhibit hall participants at the recent ALFA event in Philadelphia — because if there was ever an indication of intent or even possibility, it is the presence of vendors who want to make a sale — either now or cultivating potential.

Where’s the tech for residents today? I walked up and down the aisles and noticed 3 vendors (out of 300) at the May event who were presenting technology aimed directly residents’ quality of life. IN2L (It’s Never Too Late), MyWay Village, and PointerWare. If we add Personal Emergency Response, Emergency call systems, and resident monitoring, we add a few more. However, I put these in the category of staying alive, not quality of life. The rest of the technology vendors were all over the problem of running the facility operations: marketing, payroll, finances, billing, etc.

Residents need access now. I have been through many facilities – from small ALFs to the big and stylish CCRC, from nursing homes for the upscale to those occupied by the very poor. With a few exceptions, I see little technology for the use of residents, even though it could grab their minds and break up a day that is too often largely punctuated by meals and naps. Ironically, the more immobilized the resident, the more they would benefit from Internet surfing with Big Screen Live or listening music delivered through a kiosk by Linked Senior.

Put small money where your survey responses say you’re going. While at ALFA, I spoke with a number of executives to test their interest in a future panel on tech for residents. What I surveyed: eyes glazed, most assured me that they were not the right contact, that someone in their organization would be a better contact. Anecdotal information, for sure, not demonstrating their clearly surveyed intent to do something by 2013.

So these vendors have something to offer that boomers and seniors want — and in a slumping economy, now is as good a time as any to create messages and acknowledgements of these segments — even a few photos for the website!

To be included on the list below, web surfers have to do backflips to find boomer/senior messaging or scenarios on their website — or when you search for senior, it’s a high school student or an exec VP:

1) AMD.  AMD is deep into the gaming platform (AMD Game!), including simulation and popular war games, home PC (Acer, HP Touchsmart, Fujitsu), entertainment (AMD Live!) arenas, well-marketed and embedded in lots of products.  I think boomers and seniors LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, all of that — according to Forrester, 83% of older boomers play games on their PCs.

2) Apple. The MAC and iMac, the iPod, iTunes, the iPhone — one company, Apple, has something for every boomer and senior under the sun, including Florida and Arizona snowbirds and retirees. So search Apple’s website for baby boomer and you will get 1 iTune, 1 TV show and 2 podcasts.  I guess it is a good ‘i-start’.

3) Dell. Well you know they have all of the PC product line boomers and seniors could want for home and home office, and a 2005 press release related to veterans and visual impairment, a nice community environment for ideas and discussion, but nothing I could find that mentioned baby boomers or seniors outside of user-provided discussion.

4) Verizon. Corporate strategy includes expanding broadband access, which is good. But the successful communications giant has a hard-to-locate 65+ cell phone plan.  Further buried is the boomer and senior usefulness of Chaperone for locating your teenager, but, yes, you could also find a wandering your mother-in-law through this service. And now the company has introduced a home communications kitchen counter telephone/video/picture/text landline phone replacement called Verizon Hub. No clue that it might be for the kitchen of older adults. Finally I found this plaintive question — ‘are there any phones for seniors?’  in a Verizon community forum. The one-line answer — “You could try the Samsung Knack, ‘cheers’.”  

Four cheers if any of these vendors take a strategic look at older adults and explicitly acknowledge them as a marketable segment.

1. 2008- three out of four boomers don’t think they’re going to move. Prior to the current financial meltdown, AARP surveyed and found a variety of distinctions between older, younger, men, women boomers on the subject of moving to a one story home, warmer climate, etc.  But if 3 out of 4 on average aren’t relocating, then what are providers like Verizon and Comcast offering them as content in the home?

2. 2009- Sure enough — Boomers and seniors are staying home.  Now the financial meltdown has happened, Pulte buys Centex to prepare for an upturn in home purchases that may not occur for a long while.  So where is Home Depot’s packaged home retrofit offering (not just for earthquakes in Seattle or saving energy)?

3. The population is steadily aging.  Ironic, most firms avoid the word ‘aging’ in their marketing. But there it is. So let’s call it the ‘living independence’ marketing campaign, introduce it in time for the 4th of July, and see Lowe’s, Sears and Best Buy craft multi-dimensional offerings and low price points that help mitigate issues with stairs, entrances and exits, offer packages of stylish bath safety products, and bundles of computers and home networking solutions that Geek Squads can install?

4. Not enough caregivers are available to provide adequate care. Forget futuristic robots and training more nurses running into the home. It is amazing to me that despite multiple home monitoring vendors in the market now, that they are becoming available in selected communities, one reseller or facility at a time. Now I am back to the cable company/ISP, already in the home. Who would a DSL or cable installer or repair rep tell if they believed that a resident could use some technology assistance and/or monitoring?

5. Cost will drive home health care to replace institutional care of seniors. Turns out the VA has already figured this out and been using remote telehealth to great success, including video phone, messaging, biometrics, digital cameras, and telemonitoring. Next up — city WiFi projects (which seem to be everywhere) can branch out. City-to-home, connect where you are, campus to condo. As we’ve seen with the WiFi initiatives, lots of innovation is possible once tech vendors and city planners get together.

6. Adult (55+) communities are headed to the obsolescence heap. So active adults bought into a wonderful lifestyle during the housing updraft — but now they can’t sell, so these communities are re-evaluating age restrictions and a damper has been put on developer enthusiasm. To get these properties sold to younger age groups, clubhouses will need game rooms, outdoor space will need playgrounds, marketing will need to match first-time home buyer messaging. What an opportunity for nationwide realtor firms and even Pulte — which owns oodles of Del Webb 55+ communities.

7. Alzheimer’s — incidence and cost are up — so is fear. At the fear end, the cognitive fitness market of baby boomers seems to be ready, willing, and anxious, no doubt due to family histories. So keeping brains active, although not proven, feels almost like a preventative tactic.  So who will bring the next low-priced (or free) BrainAge to market? Why not Microsoft as part of the next version of Windows 7? Maybe it’s time for Microsoft to buy a brain fitness software company and start integrating. And then at the other end, it’s time for Verizon and Sprint to add a few short words to their market messages about services like Chaperone: perfect for multi-generational familes. See? It doesn’t even have to say ‘aging’!

8. Technology — there’s more of it and it’s more functional. As the 40+ vendors in the 2009 Market Overview make clear, there are many, many vendors of technology out there NOW. So service providers, integrators, resellers, distributors — it’s feasible to package and market these products — at multiple price points, through press coverage of demos, advocacy from councils on aging, even with all of the fund cutbacks and economic slowdown. Really.

9. Baby boomers have parents in need. During the real estate and interstate migration boom, many of us spread out across the country. But with videophones from D-Link or Skype, a camera, and a PC, we can be connected, use home monitoring technologies for motion detection, help with med reminders, and offer a detectible cell phone. Vendors can message to a continuum of caring, during that interim period before boomers decide to yank mom or dad out of their home and closer to them.

10. Nursing home residents are moving back into community. For good or ill, communities are on a rampage to get individuals out or avoid entrance into a nursing home. So the most frail, most at risk individuals are going to find their way back into continuing care, independent living, apartments, and homes. Are home care agencies, personal emergency response vendors, and medical supply firms all thinking through the services and products that this implies?

Finally, a lesson in seizing opportunity — the stimulus plan ink is barely dry and tech vendors are already running sales training programs to help non-profits, schools, agencies prepare grant requests. Training packages were being assembled before the bill was signed. From the WSJ: “With the recession forcing corporations and institutions to cancel projects, technology suppliers are eyeing the economic-stimulus package as an elixir to keep revenue flowing. It earmarks more than $100 billion that could be spent on information technology.” You gotta love it.

Editor’s Note: Laurie Orlov blogs for Aging In Place Technology Watch