Research and Exploration (Overview and Recent)

Before my wife passed away from Alzheimer’s, she went through a period of wandering outside the home that I could control with a few simple devices. I want to share what I did, and the solutions I used, in the hope they will be useful for others in the same situation I was in.

This is about how I took advantage of the ubiquity of TV in the lives of many older adults.  By adding various "smart" integrations, I turned the TV from simply a source of background noise into a useful tool — that helps my 94-yr-old aunt accomplish all sorts of things she previously had trouble with.

As I mentioned in the introduction to "My Internet Enabled Life, you can see the world while sitting at your PC in your own house or apartment. Here is a list of websites that offer an amazing assortment of places to visit, theater performances to watch, TV series, and movies.   

Having used technology all my working life, and now being retired, I notice that many of my peers are missing out on some of the benefits that come with appropriate use of the latest technology.

In this first of a series of articles, I start by just describing my Internet-enabled life. In other parts of the series, we offer essays describing a myriad of ways the Internet can enrich your day. I want to get you “hooked” to the Internet.

We have found that Care Managers can be exceptionally helpful when a sudden need to become an expert on helping aging parents is thrust upon family members. Yet many of the older adults and their families with whom we talk are unaware that this profession even exists. As part of our series on "getting expert help", we asked Kira Reginato to write this article about what Care Managers do, why you might want one, and how to find a good one.

In this interview with Dr. Jeff Johnson — who with Dr. Kate Finn literally "wrote the book" on designing for older adults — Jeff discusses with Richard Caro a variety of topics relating to designing better products for older adults.