elderly home care Archives - Deckchair Care

July 8, 2019July 8, 2019

New Technology to help people with dementia.

Technology is increasingly being used to help people live for as long as possible in their own home.

The expanding tech research programme aims to improve care for the increasing numbers of people living with dementia.

Recent Tech Developments

The Care Research and Technology Centre lauched.
A project to use self-driving car tech (Lidar) to help look after people at home.
A smartphone app to remind people with dementia how to carry out everyday tasks.
An experiment to personalise live radio.

The aim is that sensors around the house or on the body to track signals such as heartbeat, blood pressure and body temperature, gait, brain activity and sleep.

Using AI (artificial intelligence) this information can alert familiy or carers of any risks or changes. For example illness or fall risk. Catching illness early can avoid hospital stays.

Memory and cognitive function are also being researched and monitored. This can then be used to intervene early to assist them if they are showing signs of being agitated.

Dementia also causes problems with sleep. Motion sensors in beds and sheets can track problems. Sensors can also alert if a cooker is left on or if there is liquid on the floor.

Light detection and ranging – Lidar – uses safe low-power laser pulses to build up a three-dimensional scan of objects and people moving around a room. This information can be used to spot deviations in diet, toilet habits, sleep or mobility. It could also activate an alarm if there is an emergency, such as a fall.

Sensors in the home can be better because people with dementia either forget to wear them, or just don’t want to. It also avoids privacy concerns that cameras present.

Monitoring consumption of electricity and water can alert carers if there is an unusual deviation from the normal pattern.

The Alzheimer’s Society is looking for new ways to improve the lives of people with dementia. It helps start-ups with funding from its crowdsourcing programme.

About Deckchair Care

Deckchair Care are an independent, privately-owned care agency. We look after the elderly in Cheshire and South Manchester.

Read more about our care service

Thanks to ChatGPT for help creating and editing this article.

Deckchair Care are an independent, privately-owned care agency. We look after the elderly in Cheshire and South Manchester.

Read more about our care service

Thanks to ChatGPT for help creating and editing this article.

February 28, 2019February 28, 2019

6 Ways A Smart Speaker Can Help Elderly Parents.

Don’t write off the idea of getting a smart speaker for the elderly, just because they traditionally shun new technology, or struggle with the latest devices.

Google Home or Amazon aren’t just for the millennials or generation X. Because they are easy to set up and use, they are a great addition to anyone’s home, including elderly parent’s.

Hands-free voice activated.

Smart speakers have a great interface – straightforward, natural voice commands.

What’s better is that you only need your voice to activate a smart speaker features. This is especially helpful for anyone with mobility issues, vision loss, or reduced dexterity.

Once the speaker is set up, anyone can ask it to set timers and alarms, play music, add items to a to-do list and much more.

Search the internet without a screen

For the elderly who haven’t yet interacted with the internet through a tablet, computer or smart phone, a smart speakers provides an easy entry.

There’s no fuss struggling with an app on a mobile device. Anyone, young or old, can use a smart speaker to hear the latest news, get weather updates and sports scores, search the web for anything and even buy things.

Stay connected

Google home is especially good at keeping the elderly connected. Although it cannot call 999 during an emergency, it can call any other UK phone number. In the event that they need help but cannot get to the phone, this can be really useful, they can just say “OK GOOGLE, CALL JANNET”.

Even if the situation isn’t an emergency, smart speakers also work as a great speaker phone to chat with family and friends.

Home Automation

A smart speaker can be the control centre for a growing array of home devices, from turning on the lights to controlling the heating. With a smart speaker and a power socket or smart lighblub, people will be able to speak a simple command, like “OK Google, turn off the lights” to control their lamps hands-free.

A personal assistant

Most smart speakers have assistants to promt reminders and important information.

For example, “OK Google, remember that Deckchair Care are coming tomorrow at 9am” (Deckchair can even send these reminders to anyones personal assistant! Other reminders might be for medication or birthdays.

Entertainment

A smart speaker is a great device for staying entertained.

First, there are hundreds games you can play with your voice to engage the mind. There are classic options like Blackjack and Tic Tac Toe, and even popular real-world games like Jeopardy.

For the elderly struggling with vision loss, audio books can be purchased and then streamed through the speaker.

About Deckchair Care

Deckchair Care are an independent, privately-owned care agency. We look after the elderly in Cheshire and South Manchester.

Read more about our care service

Thanks to ChatGPT for help creating and editing this article.

Deckchair Care are an independent, privately-owned care agency. We look after the elderly in Cheshire and South Manchester.

Read more about our care service

Thanks to ChatGPT for help creating and editing this article.

February 13, 2019February 12, 2019

Local Paper Shutdowns Leading to Elderly Isolation

The absence of printed local newspapers has left many older people cut off from finding out what was going on in their local areas.

Many local papers have recently stopped printing, cutting an important thread holding the local community together.

The Elderly often have no idea what’s going on with thieir hospital, council and schools are doing.

Many papers moving online assumes that everyone has access to the internet. But often this isn’t the case. Also, it’s not just older people, because there are a lot of people who don’t have access to a computer or the internet.

Many have phones, but some can’t afford the data package or they might only look at it now and then.”

A quarter of local and regional papers have closed in the past decade

Charities for the elderly have warned that older people can be particularly affected by the loss of local services, such as High Street shops, post offices, libraries and pubs.

Read more about the article on the BBC website.

About Deckchair Care

Deckchair Care are an independent, privately-owned care agency. We look after the elderly in Cheshire and South Manchester.

Read more about our care service

Thanks to ChatGPT for help creating and editing this article.

Deckchair Care are an independent, privately-owned care agency. We look after the elderly in Cheshire and South Manchester.

Read more about our care service

Thanks to ChatGPT for help creating and editing this article.

August 17, 2018January 10, 2019

Encouraging the Elderly to Exercise

Research shows it’s never too late to adopt and reap the health benefits from a more active lifestyle.

For example, older adults who are active will reduce their risk of heart disease and stroke to a similar level as younger people who are active.

If people have been inactive for a while, they can gradually build their activity to reach recommended levels.

Physical activity and exercise can help you stay healthy, energetic and independent.

Many adults aged 65 and over spend, on average, 10 hours or more each day sitting or lying down. This inactivity comes at a high cost with higher rates of falls, obesity and heart disease.

As we get older, it becomes even more important to remain active if we want to stay healthy and maintain our independence.

There’s strong evidence that people who are active have a lower risk of heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, some cancers, depression and dementia.

It is reccommended that people aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate activity every week, for example 30 minutes on at least 5 days a week.

Examples of moderate activity include:

walking fast
playing doubles tennis
pushing a lawn mower
water aerobics
riding a bike on level ground or with few hills

Even if people aren’t very active there are ways to safely increase the heart rate and start benefiting from the health benefits.

The NHS has some great resources to encourage the elderly to exercise, find out more on their website here.

For help looking after the elderly and more about how Deckchair care can help, see our main website https://www.deckchaircare.co.uk

February 8, 2018

Elderly Home Care Workforce Not meeting Demand

The number of people working in care is not meeting the country’s growing care demands and unmet care needs are increasing, according to today’s report by the National Audit Office (NAO)

Care Worker Pay

“While many people working in care find it rewarding, there is widespread agreement that workers feel undervalued and there are limited opportunities for career progression, particularly compared with similar roles in health. In 2016-17, around half of care workers were paid £7.50 per hour or below (the National Living Wage was £7.20 in 2016-17), equivalent to £14,625 annually. This, along with tough working conditions and a poor image, prevents workers from joining and remaining in the sector.”

Homecare Workers

“There are around 1.34 million jobs in the adult social care sector in England, across more than 20,300 organisations¹. The turnover rate of care staff has been increasing since 2012-13 and in 2016-17 reached 27.8%. The vacancy rate in 2016-17 for jobs across social care was 6.6%, which was well above the national average of 2.5%-2.7%.”

“However, demographic trends suggest that demand for care will continue to increase and people’s cares needs will continue to become more complex. To meet these challenges, the Department estimates that the workforce will need to grow by 2.6% every year until 2035.”

Better Rewards for Carers

Responding to the report, Debs Wilkinson of Home Care company Deckchair Care said “We are now starting to see the industry change to some of these recruitment challenges. Carers are doing some really important life-enhancing work and should be better rewarded and encouraged to stay in the industry.”

“Deckchair Care pay £10 per hour which would be a 33% pay rise for about half of the existing care workers. We also offer guaranteed hours, contracts, training, mileage allowance, holiday pay and pension contributions. Everything you would expect from every other industry in England.”

The government intends to publish a green paper on reforming care for older people by summer 2018.

Care Agency in Gatley, Cheadle

¹There are around 1.34 million jobs in the adult social care sector in England. This excludes an estimated 145,000 jobs for personal assistants, employed by recipients of personal budgets and self-funders and 91,000 care jobs within the NHS.