My mother’s retired life is consumed by doing everything she can to stay independent for as long as possible. Ubers are nice, but she’s hoping self driving cars become truly possible before she has to give up her license. That’ll be a huge blow to her when the day comes.

However, other tech has really prolonged things. Fall detection, maps, hearing aids, and everything else has really allowed her to live a life relatively unchanged from when she was younger.

It's really unfortunate that so many people live in places where this is the case. One amazing thing that you notice when you walk around places that are walkable and have great transit is how mobile a lot of the old people you see around are. There's a strong correlation between more walking and reduced all-cause mortality (not just for older people but even for the middle-aged), so living somewhere that encourages getting around more on foot instead of by car just seems to automatically keep people moving for longer (as I understand it, past a certain age losing muscle mass is very difficult to come back from so maintaining it for as long as possible is key). Even when walking gets too difficult, these places tend to be way better for things like mobility scooters because you can actually get places worth visiting safely, within the range of the battery and in an acceptable amount of time.

My grandmother is turning 100 in a few months. She was able to renew her license a few years ago and it doesn’t expire until she is 107. I was truly surprised that she was able to renew it. Not because she is a bad driver (they made her take both the written and driving test) but because I assumed there would be an age cut off.

She still lives on her own, can walk unassisted, volunteers helping old people (which apparently doesn’t include herself), still has a far better memory than I do, etc.

what about teslas or Commas self driving tech? Comma even installs in just about any car (truth may vary)

What about them? You still need agility and awareness at a very high level to use Tesla's "self driving" tech, the system asks you to take over in difficult situations without any notice - I'd even argue that it's actually worse not better for someone who is old and not fully mobile, as the movements need to be quite rapid to react to the idiotic situations the car gets into by itself.

I'm for walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods. It would help if there was more such infrastructure in the US.

I'm not a fan of self driving cars as the solution to this problem space.

This only works if you live somewhere with a mild climate. Most places of the world it seems won't fall into this category. Summer and winter are hard. With cars where you get to set a temperature before going out, it's not just convenient, it can well be vital for seniors. Not to mention when there's rain, snow or wind. I'm all for cars. They just need to be more efficient. And it's achievable.

I'm handicapped and have lived without a car for more than a decade, among other things.

I've studied city planning. I run r/UrbanForestry on Reddit where I talk at times about city scale passive solar design.

Middle Eastern desert cities were historically designed such that daytime street temps were bearable by design.

It's doable. We just aren't bothering.

Great post, in our city for a few years they stopped clearing side walks in the winter (dumb mayor, he didn't last).

I carried an old lady with a walker stuck in the middle of the road. It was brutal on them even with the plowing, without zero ability to move around.

I think that speaks more to environmental hostility due to social/governmental choices. The woman lost her mobility because the mayor didn’t clear the side walks. Not because of winter.

If if we designed public transportation so it was convenient and usable by everyone older people would have more options in all weather.

If we had consistent (24/7), frequent, high coverage public transportation that was subsidized at the same rate as car infrastructure, everyone would use it. If it was faster than driving in traffic rich people would use it and support it as well.

We choose to build a society that only works for a tiny segment and makes all of our own lives more difficult (and eventually impossible).

This brings up scaling up good governance and city planning (essentially politics) VS scaling up an industrial product. Democratic governments are generally much responsive to needs of minorities and disadvantaged people, yet it’s not doing particularly well in changing how cities are built. Non-democracies aren’t gonna do any better if not worse. Wouldn’t it be much easier to improve mobility by autonomous driving and improved car design?

Walking for 15-20 min in -30C is just fine with the right clothes.

Which is the most pressing issue with winter weather for seniors. Injuries sustained from a fall are one of the leading reasons people are moved from an independent living situation. Losing your mobility from a fall is also a quick path towards death.

That's an example of poor walkability due to government choices.

How so? Are there many places that get -30 C and don’t have snow/ice?

No, but there are various cold countries where the government

- eagerly clears the snow

- provides capillary public transportation

- provides city-wide heating

- encourages the development of large buildings (even connected with each other) instead of isolated homes

It's survivable, sure. As someone who biked to work in Wisconsin winter, skis, and makes sure to get outside every day for exercise, -12 to -17 is as low as I'll go.

Does it have to be either/or?

I was unaware we had ranks on HN, or that it could be used to "line our pockets."

I’ll be forever pissed at how this site treated Terry. I keep him in my memories.

Yes. It can't be walkable if it's car-friendly.

The tech we need is mixed-use walkable neighbourhoods with reduced (or eliminated!) car traffic forced to travel slowly. It's one of the reasons I'd hate to grow old in my current house and we're considering Utrecht.

Utrecht was absolutely gorgeous. My fiance and I spent a few days in Amsterdam and I'm so glad we took a day to go out there and just walk around. Weather was trash (it was 2020 right before COVID started shutting things down) but even still one of my highlights from that trip.

We were very lucky that the author of this article* spent a day showing us around her neighbourhood. It's like the entire world has gone stark raving mad and "I think my child should be able to travel independently" is a controversial statement. Only a few pockets of sanity seem to exist.

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/may/16/welcome-cycle...

I wonder if people living in places with non-car focused infrastructure have the same reservations?

What amount of home care and nursing home care is purely down to our reliance on personal motor vehicles?

Not only will your elderly mom not live to see self driving cars become commonplace, you won't either.

This comment lacks any of the detail needed to justify its callousness.

I detect no callousness. It's unlikely, based on current trajectory, that autonomous cars would possess the ability to never need user intervention in the near future.

This is a technology website.

I'm commenting on tech trends.

One should not be leading the elderly to believe that self driving cars are going to be dramatically enhancing their mobility any day now.

Living in a car-centric society is incredibly limiting for both older people and children.

It's really unfortunate that people accept the status quo.

What does she utilize for fall detection?

Any reasonably cost solution for a 80 year old with one functioning arm to take her meds in such a way that also prevents a 5 year old from getting to them? This is what we are up against.

Currently, I have a reminder on my phone to give them to her and watch her take them, but it’s not sustainable long term.

Ideally the solutions is something that enables her to take the meds on her own.

Keep them out of easy reach but don't go to crazy lengths. If you can, talk to your 5 year old. Ideally, involve them in the process of making sure grandma takes the medicine. Kids can be very responsible when they understand something is important, and why.

Of course every kid/situation is different and needs to be met where things are at (and not where you wish it would be), but I think it's worth trying if you have bandwidth. They may surprise you.

When you think about it, most 5 year olds have ready access to very dangerous things; they can turn on the oven, toast things (not necessarily food), they often have access to sharp knives with a minimum of effort, etc. What keeps them safe is their understanding of the risks of those things. The real problem with grandma's pills is that the risk of them is not "accessible" to a child in the way those other things are.

If concerned about unsafe access to medications, I think putting them in a locked cabinet or room is the best solution rather than thinking that something like a bottle cap is going to control access. Unfortunately, many elderly also suffer cognitive declines which make it risky for them to manage their own medications, even if they are physically capable of the task. Missed doses or accidental double-dosing can potentially lead to other health problems, exacerbating their cognitive struggles and increasing the risk of dosing mistakes.

In the long run, I think that a family providing such support should consider adopting some of the best practices of care staff who do medication management for clients. You want a physical log sheet that is formatted like a 2D matrix with recurring doses as row labels and dates written as column labels. The rows should also be sorted and grouped chronologically, i.e. the first row is the first dose to take after waking and it is ordered through to the last dose to take before bed. You typically also want to leave blank space after each dosing period so you can potentially write in new medications when there are changes ordered during the tracking period. You also want to keep a digital copy of the form that you can easily revise and print again as the forms are filled to completion.

The responsible party measures out the doses and marks/initials the cells of the grid for the individual dose and date being administered. In a professional setting, they might mark once for preparing the doses and once again after witnessing that they were consumed. The active log sheet is kept in the same storage area as the medications, readily accessible to the ones administering them. If there are multiple people taking medications, a separate series of sheets is used for each person.

In a professional setting, this supports audit. But in any setting, it also provides a simple process to help minimize dosing mistakes. There are no more questions like, "wait, did they already take this?" after a distraction has interrupted the normal, habitual process. This written formalism can also help you manage refills. Learn to think in terms of "N days' supply" to note on the grid when a bottle is opened, predict when it will be depleted, and mark down when it should be reordered.

Put them in a locked firesafe in an accessible medicine dispenser. Put the key to the firesafe on a chain around grandma's neck.

Thank you for the idea. If I could rely on her to remember to close the door to the safe and lock it every time it would be a good option.

You can't call her and walk her through the steps or something?

Put only one dose at a time in the firesafe so if it's left open, it's empty and no one cares?

Could one of these help? https://www.google.com/search?q=locked+home+safe+that+can+be...

you could get a freezer door alarm similar to this: https://www.amazon.com/FRIDGGI-Fridge-Alarm-Seconds-white-pa...

You can also buy RFID safes and RFID rings. That way you open the safe with the ring.

Spice rack full of med bottles surrounded by a clamp that activates on a lever allowing the cap to be twisted without second hand present

https://mygita.com how about something like a Gita Mini which is a follow bot? It is for paved outdoors as well as indoors. You can lock it from your phone and can follow the elderly person.

I think there are might be some tweaks to make it suit your purpose. But it is worth looking into how it can help senior care as a follow bot.

P.S: I did a ton of research for small farm robotics and met very interesting startup founders in the healthcare/robotics area on the way. If anyone wants to brainstorm or even simply chat about senior healthcare and robotics, please reach out. This is something that is very close to my heart and if I can help make connections even if I can’t help in any technical/material way, it would make me very glad.

Thanks for the idea! irony, I am a hardware/software eng working in the home health space... I am thinking of a keurig type device with a integrated finger print reader button. the dispenser only releases dosage if the biometrics match.

I mentioned this idea to my wife and she said it will only make our five year old want them more... maybe we will make a kids version that releases gummies :).

I like that idea and would work for adult snacks too!

I think we already have a timed version for pet food in the market for portion sizes.

There was a company that came up with smart pill tech that had ingestible sensor that would send a text to the medical provider. It went bankrupt.

https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/tech/from-billions-to-bankr...

We have all the technology in the world to make humanity live better. But the people who control it get to decide if it’s profitable enough.

But really, the solution is more research into anti-ageing science. Not how to maintain the ill and the aged until they die.

I encourage all young people in geriatric healthcare to wear ageing simulation suits to understand the problem first hand to come up with better solutions. It’s less than 3k and can also be rented.

This ignores our role in the matter (through government), instead blaming some evil non-descript entity (the people who "control" it and make "profit"). The people you rail against didn't decide the "profit" wasn't enough, there probably wasn't any profit in it at all at a price point people were willing to pay (if they were willing at all to ingest a sensor). Which implies that the only way to make it available to people is to subsidize it collectively, or give it away through charity, so why didn't we make it available for people?

I wasn’t ‘railing’ against anyone. I understand profit.

Please reconsider your comment if you would like me to engage in any meaningful exchange with you.