Smart Homes and Health Care: What You Should Know

There has been a lot of talk and curiosity regarding smart homes — what they are and what they might mean for the future. This leads to the question of how it might affect home health care, not only in Chesterfield, but all of America.

First, there are different types of smart homes, each having varying functions and limitations. The more commonly heard of one, usually seen on television commercials, gives residents the ability to turn the lights on and off in their place, lock their doors, set alarms, and complete other actions in their place from miles away, simply at the touch of a button on their smartphone.

But technology is becoming more and more advanced. Some smart residences can use its cloud-connecting technology to monitor a person’s health through their routines and the environment around them. These intelligent systems would be able to analyze the situation and possibly predict and detect dangerous situations based on how the patient interacts with objects in their house.

This system would collect data as the patient goes about normal routines and activities and it uses this information to build contexts about the person’s daily life. For example, it could detect when someone turns the television on, makes a pot of coffee, or turns on the kettle, etc. Through this, it can monitor possible declines in cognitive, functional, and mental well-being.

Simply put, these smart spaces and monitoring systems are mainly used to collect data. A medical professional would use this information to keep an eye on the patient’s behavior and provide the right care for the patient as necessary.

However, the benefit is also its disadvantage. As technology advances, the use of these kinds of systems could eventually eliminate the need for human interaction which, in many cases, is one of the important aspects of in-house aides. These attendants also provide companionship and plays a key role in helping patients. This may be why several studies have come up with the same results that show people are reluctant to adopt this kind of technology when it comes to home health care.

So even though the world is full of smartphones and cloud-based technology, it seems that people still have their reservations about these advancements when it comes to their own medical and non-medical needs.

If at all, it will be a very long time before these smart systems seep into many practices. It seems home health care in Macomb can wait as well.