Guides & Topic Deep-Dives
Independent, objective, in-depth analysis.
Most of our research is designed to help older adults and their families make decisions and choices about topics that impact quality of life as we grow older. Some of it is designed to help innovators develop products and services that older adults like us will actually want and find useful.
Featured Guides & Reports
Medical Alert Systems: Help!
We kept getting asked "which medical alert system is best?"; and "how do I choose the right medical alert system for me?". This independent, objective, hands-on research tries to answer those questions. If you are looking for a medical alert system, either for yourself or for an older adult such as a parent, this piece of research is for you.
The "Useful Apps Club" for Older Adults
Unlock the potential of your smartphone or tablet to improve your life.
The "Useful Apps Club" is for older adults and Boomers who have a smartphone or tablet (or are thinking of getting one) and need help to turn it into a useful tool. We are focused on finding Apps that can change your life, and teaching you how to use them.
Avoid the Perils of Falling
Read the "best of the web" on: Avoiding Falling. Our team of clinicians and citizen analysts has scoured the web for the best available answers to a set of questions designed to help you make falling less likely, and make the consequences if you do fall less bad.
More Topic Deep-Dives
Medication Management Guide: Tools & Strategies
Medication Management Guide: Tools & Strategies. Research from Tech-enhanced Life into Medication apps, pill organizers, medication reminders, and medication lists. Comparative evaluations and reviews.
Retirement & Senior Living Choices: A Guide
Whether you call it senior living, retirement living, aging in place, or just finding a nice place to live when you get older, where and how to live is a super important question for older adults.
Designing for Older Adults: Learnings
There is a prevailing thought that products for older adults need to be designed with "different" things in mind than products for other demographics. But what should those "different" principles be? And is this idea even correct?
We are exploring these ideas in a series of explorations and articles. Our goal is to shed light on what people need to bear in mind as they think about developing products for the various types of people who collectively make up the bucket of "seniors".
Homebrew Solutions, Workarounds, & Ideas
Reports from older adults, and their friends and families, about ways they have solved challenges that were getting in the way of living life the way they wanted. These pieces of content contain real life experiences from makers, inventors, hackers of aging, and regular people dealing with growing older.
Tools to Live Independently Longer
Seminar Series on Technologies for Aging in Place.
Hearing
As we grow older, hearing often deteriorates. If left unaddressed, hearing issues can make it harder to interact with others, and can lead to social isolation and even to depression. Luckily, there are various tools and assistive devices that can help compensate for imperfect hearing, including hearables, amplifiers, hearing aids, hearing apps, and a variety of more or less complex hearing devices. We are exploring them, and collecting what we learn on this Topic Hub.
Brain, Memory, Dementia Technology
We are exploring ways to optimize brain fitness and memory — looking for ideas about how to push cognitive impairment as far into the future as we can. And we are exploring dementia technology — looking for gadgets that can help older adults function independently as long as possible. We think the right gadgets and Apps should help caregivers and family members minimize the burdens associated with caring for older adults with cognitive impairment. So, we are looking for these innovations too.
Technology: Using It, Choosing It, Finding Support
A big focus of Tech-enhanced Life's work is finding ways technology-based products can improve the quality of life for all of as we age. But often, for those products to be useful, older adults need to make some changes to their way of life and learn new things. Sometimes, people need some help and advice with that.
Transportation & Mobility Tech
Being free to get from one place to another when you want is a very important ingredient of an independent life. But it becomes harder as you get older — and either can't (or don't want to) drive anymore, or can't walk as far as you used to. We are exploring solutions to these challenges. This is our Topic Hub for coverage of things related to getting around and mobility tech.
Planning, Documentation, Expert Help
Most older adults we talk to would like to "stay independent" for as long as possible. And when we probe what that really means, it usually is about maintaining some level of autonomy and control over one's destiny as long as possible. Accomplishing this requires planning ahead, and documenting what you want. It usually also requires judicious use of various expert helpers as we start becoming less and less able to "do everything". This Topic Hub is where we collect our exploration into topics like which experts might be useful to retain what sort of "planning" should you be doing...