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Ken Fitzgerald
09-09-2016, 3:32 PM
In this morning's mail there was an envelope addressed very formally to me. Inside was a letter inviting me to an upscale local restaurant for a free "flatiron sirloin steak or braised chicken breast" dinner where I would be introduced to devices that would allow me to continue to live alone in my home. On the letter were pictures of a stair lift, a "Please help me I've fallen and can't get up" alert system and walk-in bath tub.

2 questions... 1) Is my wife leaving me? 2) What are they trying to tell me?:confused::eek::rolleyes:

julian abram
09-09-2016, 4:06 PM
Hmmm, think they are trying to tell you they are willing to gamble on a $20 dinner that you will spend a few thousand on one of their products.:)

Wade Lippman
09-09-2016, 4:15 PM
I could get 25 meals a year off of investments, hearing aids, medical insurance, etc. etc.
Haven't seen the lift thingy yet.

My wife won't go to these things.

Roger Feeley
09-09-2016, 4:52 PM
Their clumsy marketing aside, there's some pretty great stuff out there that can really help. They can put sensors all over a house and track your habits.

1. Let's say that every night at about 3am you get up to go to the bathroom:
2. You get out of bed (a weight sensor registers that)
3. You walk down the hall (motion detector)
4. You sit down on the throne (weight sensor)
4a. You urinate and a device analyzes the glucose in the water (that's coming).
5. You stand up and flush (weight sensor & sensor on the toilet to detect the flush)
6. You walk back down the hall (motion)
7. You get back into bed (weight)

They have adaptive software that learns your habits and sets up allowable variations in occurance and timing. So if you do items 1-5 above but not 6 and 7, the system waits just a bit and then notifies a monitoring center that tries to contact you or a loved one.

Of course these guys can do all the standard stuff. They can monitor doors, windows, cars and you. It all depends on needs and the ability to pay. It sounds expensive but it's really not if it can be made to work. The hardware and monitoring is a lot less expensive than full nursing care.

They also have automated medication dispensors that will track your medication. This is really for a fairly narrow window of dementia where you just need a bit of a reminder. A pharmacy tech visits you once a month and loads a carousel into a machine about the size of a bread machine. When it's time for a med, a little cup is ejected out of the machine and the machine begins an escalating series of reminders. After a certain amount of time, the cup is re-ingested back into the machine and the monitors are notified.

All of this sounds like big brother but I can tell you that my mother went through a stage where she might have benefited. She would forget to take her meds and get into a bad way. She would go to full time nursing for a week to get it all straightened out and then it would seem like she didn't need the meds. All she really needed was a bit of prompting to take those medications every day on time. The dispenser would have been just the thing. Unfortunately that window was cut short by a stroke and she went into Assisted Living where humans took over the monitoring.

Bruce Page
09-09-2016, 5:05 PM
LOML turned 60 a few months ago. Now she's the one getting all the hearing aid junk mail. I can't help but smile.

John K Jordan
09-09-2016, 10:47 PM
Ken, when I get things like that it is obvious they are not directed to me. Good grief, I'm only 66 and can still race a teenager up the hill from the barn. But maybe when I'm 67...

I think they just want me to know the things that are available so I can help the "old" folks I know. :) I'll be glad to forward things to you!


Some of the things available are of course so, so useful to some. My brother-in-law is afflicted with MS and would have a rough time without his stair lift.

JKJ

Rich Riddle
09-09-2016, 11:06 PM
Ken,

I infer they think you are getting old.....have the reverse mortgage mailings started?

Kev Williams
09-10-2016, 12:01 AM
What they're trying to tell you is they know your birthday... :)

Mike Null
09-10-2016, 7:40 AM
We used to get "invitations" like that 50 years ago. They were selling plots of land in the Tennessee mountains. It turned out to be a big scam but they made an impressive sales pitch. Thankfully, I had less than no money at the time.

Jim Becker
09-10-2016, 10:09 AM
Well, at least it's not a Time Share presentation... :D

Sean Troy
09-10-2016, 10:26 AM
Yesterday in the mail, I received an invitation to a new senior living complex open house. My wife thought it was pretty darn funny.