DALLAS — Motion sensors and radio frequency devices may not be the first things that come to mind when thinking about long-term care patients, but these technologies are playing a key role at one residential care facility near Portland, Ore.
Lydia Lundberg and Bill Reed, co-owners of Elite Care, have developed Oatfield Estates, a group of residential care facilities that combine extended family-style living with high-tech capabilities. The six houses are located in a quiet, residential neighborhood. Each facility includes 12 resident suites and 3 live-in suites for staff members.
“We wanted to create an environment where we would want to live in another 30 years when we need help with our [activities of daily living],” Ms. Lundberg said at the annual symposium of the American Medical Directors Association.
The technology incorporated into the facilities is aimed at better tracking residents and staff, and providing alerts about potential falls or wandering. It also allows the staff to accommodate residents with dementia without having a locked facility, she said.
For example, residents and staff wear a wireless pendant at all times that allows the management at the facility to track everyone's movements. The pendant uses infrared and radio frequency signals.
The data allow the management to generate reports about how much time a particular staff person has spent with a resident in his or her room, for example. The pendants are well accepted by staff and can be very helpful when discussing care plans with family members, Ms. Lundberg said. Often, “the families are in denial about how much time their parents need,” she said, adding that the device's radio frequency is similar to what is used in wireless house phones or TV remote controls.
The facility also uses technology to alert staff to potential falls by residents. For example, load cells—which measure the variation in weight placed on an object—are built into most beds to create an alert that lets staff members know when residents get out of bed. The alert is used only for residents who are at risk of falling. That way, staff can check on them when the residents are out of bed to ensure they haven't fallen, Ms. Lundberg said.
Other technology is aimed at making sure residents who have dementia don't wander. There are sensors on the residents' doors that allow staff to know when residents are leaving or entering, and sensors on the driveway to detect when residents get too close.
If residents remove their pendants and attempt to wander off, a sensor on the driveway sets off lawn sprinklers, which stops them most of the time, Ms. Lundberg said.
Technology also is used to collect information on time spent in bed, weight changes, call history, socialization, activity level, and other measures. If the resident has agreed, family members can track the resident's status on several measures through a secure, online family portal. Being able to provide this access means family members are more likely to support actions by staff, instead of questioning them, Ms. Lundberg said.
“The data stream allows you to predict and adapt to changing conditions of the residents,” she said.
The cost of installing the sensors and software in each suite is $4,000 and slightly more for double occupancy, Ms. Lundberg said. Service and upgrades are extra.
In addition, residents pay about $3,450 in base rent at the facility, plus care services. So the average monthly cost for a resident is about $4,200, according to Ms. Lundberg.
Ms. Lundberg is not the only one looking at technology in the long-term care field. The Alzheimer's Association, along with Intel Corp., has funded 10 projects during the past 2 years as part of its Everyday Technologies for Alzheimer Care grant program, said Dr. Eric G. Tangalos, professor of medicine and codirector of the Kogod Program on Aging at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
The grant projects have looked at a range of research topics, including audiovisual prompts for Alzheimer's patients to complete their daily living activities, and Internet-based support tools for caregivers.
One project conducted at the University of Toronto looks at ways to help people with dementia improve their handwashing. The researchers used a desktop computer, a camera mounted over the sink, and audio prompts. The relatively low-tech intervention gave patients more independence since they required less direct help from nurses and other caregivers, Dr. Tangalos said.