We have a beautiful problem.
More and more seniors want to age in place. i.e. live in their own homes with fruitful lives on their own terms.
We also know the fear of responding too late to an emergency especially when the care is remote.
When a tree falls in the forest, who notices? We do.
We've developed Dez to tackle this challenge:
The app has learned that Grandma's waking pattern—typically 8am to 8:30am on an average day. It's 8:32am on Thursday and she's not responding to our greeting: "Good morning, Grandma."
We send a notification to Grandma's daughter—the primary caregiver who doesn't live with her—to let her know to check in. We have also notified the neighbour who is listed on the support circle. This neighbour has a set of spare keys to check on Grandma.
Neighbour then opens the door to find Grandma in the lounge room watching TV, phone in the other room. Oops...Grandma forgot to say good morning to Dez.
The neighbour notifies us that it's all good → Dez informs the daughter.
All done via the app.
These are problems that we can solve with tech.
"But seniors don't own or actively use a mobile phone, nor are they connected to the internet in Singapore, right?" we have been asked on numerous occasions.
Singapore has one of the highest rates of household internet access in the world (99%). According to IMDA's Singapore Digital Society Report (2023) (https://www.imda.gov.sg/-/media/imda/files/infocomm-media-landscape/research-and-statistics/singapore-digital-society-report/singapore-digital-society-report-2023.pdf): "The percentage of seniors using online payments has more than doubled from 38% in 2018 to 78% in 2022. Also, more seniors are using the Singpass app in 2022 (67%) compared to 2020 (41%)."
Thanks to Covid, we've all been forced to go digital. Across the world!
Ask any parent or grandparent: what's the first thing you do when you wake up, and the last thing before you go to bed?
#caregiving #CaregiverSupport #Dez