As someone in tech, it's stories and experiences like this that make me wonder if we're working towards something that will help those in need or if we're investing our time/money/energy in the right places. After all, everyone is going to die so I'm wondering what we can do to alleviate some of the pressure + pain from this part of life.
In this vein, if you know of opportunities to help the elderly in NYC, please let me know. I'm open and willing to spend my evenings and full weekends helping out however I can. Have reached out to a few senior centers, but most have not responded, unfortunately...
Considering that the biggest technology companies are advertisers, data-collectors and shopping oriented, my initial feeling is "absolutely not".
But it's also hard to get people engaged to trying to help the elderly, until they see the struggle in front of them. Which I'm sure many don't.
I used to work as a elderly-care assistant in Sweden, and while helping with medicin, cleaning and other things are important, most of the people just want to have some company once in a while, and was incredibly grateful for being able to have a honest conversation with a non-doctor.
So my recommendation would be to reach out to elderly-care homes in NYC, and ask them if they need help with basic tasks on weekends/evenings. With that, you'll get time to interact with them as well (although, maybe all this works differently in the US, I have no idea).
I'm sorry for what your family is going through. It took a profound toll on our family, too.
I found that many newer models of cordless home phones will bluetooth tether to a cellphone. This way we could keep her phone plugged in and charged and she could just use the cordless style phone she was already accustomed to.
30 years later same issue with my mom, she can navigate very complex tasks no problem but has trouble with anything new, even if it's much "easier" to use.
The trick would be to have new tech perfectly emulate whatever the old generation grew up with.
My mother is in her mid 70s and very far from a techie or tech-interested (worked in textiles/fashion, never used a computer before the current century & then first only for making free international calls via Skype as was setup by us) & slowly but surely adapted to some small variety of new tech especially after retirement when she had more time on her hand.
She does nothing fancy with it but is e.g. using a modern android phone to make video calls & send messages via whatsapp, play casual games, etc.
Sounds like skeuomorphism. Wait for the next generation of designers to bring it back.
It's a terrible existence that my mother is living.
Huh, I didn’t realize this was an option, that’s very useful for situations like this. Thanks for the tip!
I'm sure there was at least one dialer program installed already. No idea how to find it. There is a lot to be said for a simple phone that puts making phone calls front and centre, with permanent buttons with numbers on them.
I don't know if there's an easy solution to this problem. It seems to be a very deep part of a trade-off made very early on in the development of America's cultural fabric. I'm not sure if (knock on wood that I ever get there) I'd want to retire in America. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if the grass is that much greener elsewhere.
Often times taking them in to our home. But it's not all colorful. The Philippines is a third-world country and such there would be conflict in financial matters but still, Filipinos can take a lot of beating and hardships before giving up.
I see a lot of Americans retire here with their Filipino wives. Their dollars are giving them a good buck i.e. nice houses, etc.
Yet major technology companies continue to make it difficult for seniors to do simple things, even though they think they're making things easier. The tech hipsters handling design for FAANG companies should follow around a group of 70-somethings for a week and try to see the world through their eyes ... and realize that a huge segment of the population is not being served.
1. fonts too small
2. buttons that do different things depending on how long the button is held down
3. chording - needing to hold down more than one button simultaneously to do something
4. blink speed - slow blink means one thing, fast blink means another. Is that LED blinking "slow" or "fast"?
5. labeling buttons with icons that have no deducible meaning
6. modes
7. having to do the next step within a certain number of seconds or it fails and you have to start all over again
Holy shit. I can't imagine how the author can afford that plus take care of his family.
Basically you cover it with whatever SS, pension, savings, and other assets they have. When those don't cover it, you make compromises in quality of care, your finances, and your family's life.
Literally the cost of labor is just too high for this to not be part of a social safety net.
Is this housing cost a Silicon Valley thing? Like rents are completely insane, so elder housing is also completely insane?
It's not like I live in a cheap city, either. Boston is pretty pricey, but wow.
Your "family" could be covered by a great health insurance plan through your employer, but you wouldn't get any financial assistance on the $6,300 a month that the author of the article is paying for his elderly mother.
[Edit] Sorry my comment should have been placed in response to the one comment about what SV should really be investing in. Imagine if we had companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon trying to solve dementia rather than get more revenues through ads.
