Other families have also found that the systems reduce the need for nagging conversations. Ray Joss, 91, of Flushing, Queens, has been using a sensor-based system called QuietCare that she found through Selfhelp, a social services company in New York that helps seniors use technology to allow them to live independently. She says that she and her son, who lives in New Jersey, don’t have to dwell on her well-being in conversations because the monitoring system has already let him know how she is. “We talk about other things rather than just how I feel. He doesn’t have to ask me.”
Despite their increasing familiarity with the technology, many elderly people draw the line at cameras.
Susan Oertle has been using a wireless monitoring system called BeClose to check on her aunt, who was recently widowed and had no children of her own. Though the 83-year-old woman recently broke her hip and suffers from a lung condition that compromises her breathing, she is still fiercely independent and likes to stay up till 1:30am.
Thanks to wireless sensors in her aunt’s bed, Oertle can roll over in the middle of the night and notice an e-mail message flashing on her phone reassuring her that her aunt went to sleep. But enough is enough. If there had been cameras to monitor her, Oertle said, “I think she would have had a bird.”
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