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Senior
Citizens to See High Tech Sensors in Homes, on Bodies to Monitor Health
Senior Journal
December, 2007
Glucose
sensor to be implanted under the skin of diabetics
Senior citizens who do not take kindly to high tech devices had better get more comfortable with them because there is an increasingly good chance they will have them managing their home and body in the years ahead. A new projection says that by 2012 more than 3.4 million senior citizens in the U.S. will be using networked sensor application to monitor and improve their health.
One company active in this area, Living Independently Group, says that in this last quarter of 2007, it will install approximately 1,500 new QuietCare systems in U.S. senior communities. QuietCare sensors learn the pattern of activity in a home or room and alerts monitors if there is a change in these patterns. (See more below).
Parks Associates, the company releasing the new report, also estimates that the total U.S. digital home health market will grow at an average annual rate of 36 percent and turn into a $2.1 billion industry by 2010.
The latest report by Parks Associates highlights major technology trends for sensors including ECG electrodes, blood glucose sensors, SpO2 sensors, respiratory rate sensors, activity sensors, and emerging Body Sensor Network (BSN) applications.
This report projects innovation in sensor technologies will make these devices lighter, smarter, and more reliable, driving adoption for home-based medical applications over the next five years.
Parks Associates also cautions, in addition to technological challenges, sensor-based home care monitoring applications must win consumers' trust and gain recognition in multiple industry sectors, from caregivers to insurers, to realize their full potential.
"The question of who should pay is the key to promoting healthy demand for sensor-based senior care applications," said Harry Wang, senior analyst, Parks Associates.
"The industry will grow even faster if consumers, government Medicare and Medicaid programs, long-term care insurance underwriters, and retiree health benefit insurers all chip in to finance these new technologies."
Wang will present findings in this report, “Sensor Technology for Home Health Applications” and other digital health issues in the session Opportunities in the Digital Health Market at 2008 International CES on January 8, 2008, in Las Vegas. This conference will feature a keynote address by Bill Gates of Microsoft.
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