Episode 104: Helping Older Adults Say Yes to Technology

 In this episode of Informed Aging, host Robin Rountree is joined by Abbie Richie, known as “The Tech Guru” and founder of The Smarter Service, to explore how technology can truly support older adults when it’s introduced with patience, respect, and purpose. 

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Transcript

[00:00:04] Welcome to Informed Aging, a podcast about health help and hard decisions for older adults. I'm Robin Roundtree. I'm a former family caregiver. I've worked in the home care industry and now work for the Alzheimer's and Dementia Resource Center.
[00:00:19] The thoughts and opinions expressed belong to me and my guest, not our wonderful employers and sponsors. Before making any significant changes in your life or your person's life, please consult your own experts. Today we are talking technology again. Incredible advancements are being made. But some older adults are cautious or not interested.
[00:00:41] Abby Rich called the Tech Guru, will be here to talk about getting technology buy-in from older adults, and how best to show the older person in your life how to use their new technology.
[00:00:53] Senior Helpers is the only home care agency offering a revolutionary new way to approach senior care, the Life Profile Assessment. This database app is a crucial tool in helping seniors age safely and successfully at home. Combined with our proven in-home care programs and trained caregivers, senior helpers life profile is leading the way to better outcomes.
[00:01:18] For our clients. For more information, log on to senior helpers.com/orlando.
[00:02:05] Robin : She's with the Smarter Service and also the Host of Tech Smarter. That's a podcast. Is that just on LinkedIn or everywhere?
[00:02:13] Abbie: Everywhere. 
[00:02:13] Robin : Love that. Well, we could all tech a little smarter, but especially when we talk about older adults you know, we've got the baby boomers aging. Everybody wants to age in place. We think technology's the answer, but then, in the older populations, there's some reluctance to, uh, bring in the technology.
[00:02:35] So I guess first we'll start with that how can we get some buy-in? And you know, I'm getting it myself. I'm like, AI, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll get there. Now I'm there, but I didn't just dive in like I would have 20 years ago for new technology. 
[00:02:51] Abbie: Sure. Robin, thank you so much for having me today.
[00:02:53] It's always a pleasure to talk about how we can help older adults with technology, and it's something that I have really gained a enormous amount of respect for in the past seven or eight years that I have been doing this. And you asked how we can get that buy-in.
[00:03:13] And what I've seen happen with a lot of older adults is that they are quite often just handed the technology. Without a manual, right? And 
[00:03:27] Robin : right 
[00:03:28] Abbie: older adult is a traditional learner. They went to school, they took notes, they had a textbook. They wanna understand things from the very beginning so that yes, build upon that knowledge and the way that we as a society have been supplying educational services to older adults is completely
[00:03:53] wrong because we're taking an educational model for a 20-year-old at an Apple store and trying to apply that to an older adult, and that's not gonna work. 
[00:04:06] Robin : No. So 
[00:04:07] Abbie: in order to get buy-in, we really need to consider teaching an older adult about their technology from the basics. And what I mean, basics is this.
[00:04:20] If you're, if you're an adult child and you're giving your mom a phone. And maybe she has, she has used a phone, she's used an iPhone. But this phone is a little different. And you know what I want you to do is I want you to say, this is the on and off button. It's also Yeah, the wake button and just tapping it.
[00:04:43] will put it to sleep, but when you hold it in. For three seconds, you'll be able to power off the device. And that's very different than just putting something to, to sleep and then go around. Here are the speakers, here's the microphone. If you keep your hand on it, someone's not gonna hear you. This, what this is what this button means. You've got three camera lenses on the back here. You know what I mean? Like keep them clean. So like they really want a basic foundational knowledge for the technology they're using rather than, here you go, like taking the baby home from the hospital. Good luck with that.
[00:05:24] Robin : That is a great analogy, and it's so, it's not the technology's fault so much, it's that we're not respecting how an older adult learns and how to make that the most successful experience. 
[00:05:38] Abbie: A hundred percent. And what I found also is like we do get excited about our technology and our little, you know, our apps and the way we like to, uh, have our settings.
[00:05:48] You know what, however the case is. The way I'm using my phone is vastly different than the way my mom uses it and the apps that I love using, like the Google Suite for instance, my mom could care less about that. And so we really have to moderate what we teach them and teach them things that matter to them more so than what matters to you.
[00:06:17] Like the concept of having apps inside a folder may not make any sense to my mom, who instead would prefer to see the apps listed out on the home screen.
[00:06:33] Robin : Okay. Yeah, I just was commenting to an older adult, I'm like, wow, that's a lot of apps. 'cause she was going through all the screens. She just didn't wanna put 'em in a folder.
[00:06:45] It was just easier for her brain to think that way. And I Now you're telling me, yeah, I should just go. Yeah, that's fine. 
[00:06:51] Abbie: The thing that that I really dislike seeing is what I call the Titanic takeaway. Okay. It's when you're there with your parents or you know, for grandchildren. And then grandma's has a question about her phone and what they do is they.
[00:07:06] Take it away, make the change and hand it back. And that takeaway is missing the educational piece. Plus there is a chance that you might edit to her phone in a way that doesn't make sense to her.
[00:07:23] Robin : And it's kind of a, a loss of dignity, oh, you can't figure this out. Let me just do it.
[00:07:29] Abbie: Yeah. Yep. 
[00:07:31] Robin : Oh, I hadn't thought about it that way, but Absolutely.
[00:07:33] Show rather than take. 
[00:07:35] Abbie: Yeah. And I used to teach this like five steps to helping your parents with tech support, and I think one of the last steps was, write it down in a, in 1, 2, 3 steps for them to follow so that they have something to refer to when you're not there.
[00:07:54] Again, because they're very traditional learners, and then be fully prepared to show them again next week because retention is really helpful. 
[00:08:07] Robin : And I think as sort of an older adult, depends on what your range is. But we have seen technology change so much from sitting at our desk and then computers came along and then we've gotta learn the internet and then, you know, it's been a lot on our brains.
[00:08:25] And if you're just popping out of the womb and being handed an iPhone. You're not having the learning curve that we've gone through. 
[00:08:32] Abbie: Yeah. Yes, true. But at the same time, like the technology just really keeps changing and so you have to remain bendy around it and there has to be some level of interest to connect with family and friends in order to really drive the purpose of the technology.
[00:08:51] Robin : Very good point. So with all of this technology, how is it impacting in the health and wellness sector? 
[00:09:00] Abbie: Yeah, I think it's a tremendous aid. Because in health and wellness as, uh, we have caregiver shortages, for instance, there's a lot that can be done. In using AI, there's a lot that can be done with using sensors.
[00:09:17] For instance, we can install something like a sensor unit in their home. And the sensor can track their movements. It's not a camera. 'cause we talked about integrity. Right. It's not a microphone.
[00:09:32] Right. But what the sensor can do with infrared technology is track their movements. Okay. And see how many times is mom getting up to go to the bathroom? Is that different than the way it used to be? We can see is dad uh, is he still in bed? But he always is up by this time. And so all of this adaptive technology helps us remain in contact with the people we love.
[00:10:01] Robin : Yeah. And hopefully keeping them at home, which is what most people wanna do. 
[00:10:06] Abbie: Yes. As well as tapping into the ability to do telehealth, for instance, like I think that right is something that, many of us gravitated to during COVID and it's something that's really gained a lot of refinement in the past five years.
[00:10:22] So I fully recommend that people do these telehealth appointments, uh, because they don't have to leave home for them. They don't have to coordinate how they're gonna get there and they don't have to risk any infection or anything like that, waiting in the doctor's waiting room.
[00:10:38] Uh, so it's something I truly recommend. 
[00:10:42] Robin : I like that. So caregiver shortage, we talked about one thing, which is you know, the infrared and kind of keeping a track.
[00:10:52] How can that help with falls? Because we know falls in older adults. That's serious. 
[00:10:58] Abbie: Yeah. Oh my gosh. It's so serious. And, I've seen clients do this a couple different ways. I think that, the fall tracking can be done in a personal way where you're wearing an Apple watch.
[00:11:10] Okay, and I'm, you're wearing a pendant, although it's only as good as the person who's wearing it. So if you're not wearing, yes, it doesn't work. I've seen some clients get two Apple watches, one stays on the stand, charging the other one is on their, on their body. They only, they swap them out so that they are never without a fall detection in place.
[00:11:33] Okay,
[00:11:34] Robin : that's smart. 
[00:11:35] Abbie: I like the Apple watch because it's stylish. There's no stigma involved with it. A lot of people I know don't wanna wear the ugly pendant, so that's one way around it and it's a way of really getting your family member or older adult involved actively in their help. Now, there's a very passive way to do this, and that's with sensors.
[00:11:58] So there's sensor technology, it comes all so many different ways and what you do is you put up something that looks like a quarter in different rooms. There's one base unit, but then there are these centers in different rooms that are tracking mobility. They're tracking patterns. They're also flagging anything that seems unusual and that will detect a fall.
[00:12:24] Robin : Now, tell me about this company. You're the tech guru at the Smarter Service. What do you do there? Okay, so a long time ago, let's just say 2018, I started working with older adults at senior living communities and they started to call me the tech guru.
[00:12:43] Abbie: , And it stuck. And then when I would. Be introduced on tv, the host would say, uh, the tech guru. Abby. Richie. So it's stuck.
[00:12:53] I like it. The Smarter Service is a company that provides concierge tech services at senior living communities across the country. And what you know is we have like a. A tech desk. Okay. It's sort of like a genius bar, but it's at the senior living community. It's there once a week or twice a week, and residents can bring their portable devices and ask their question.
[00:13:19] Okay? And they can also schedule in. Apartment visits as well to get something like a printer worked on or the wifi or something like that. So we've been providing this and we have found that the transformation is huge because typically what happens when we start a community is that people just have questions around something that's broken.
[00:13:43] My email's broken. Right. I can't turn this thing on. I can't do this. There's like these broken. Can you fix it? Questions. And once that's done, then the next level of questions after that becomes much more nuanced to their particular hobbies and their interests. And once they start, you know, you get the broken, fixed stuff taken care of, then they can really start using their technology in a way that benefits them.
[00:14:17] For instance, if you're an artist and you want to paint, you know, a picture of the eagles that you saw in their nest, and you've got that picture on your iPad, there's a way for it to go in a grid. So that you can paint in grids and a lot of people like to paint in grids, so they've got the dimensions and the composition in place, so we can show you how to do that.
[00:14:41] If you love to listen to the radio,
[00:14:44] and then there's this one host from your hometown, but you can't get 'em on the radio here, we're gonna show you how to find that on a podcast, and you can listen to that anytime you go out for a walk. You know what I mean? So we like to take the technology and personalize it so that it fits their needs.
[00:15:05] Robin : I think there should be a smarter service on every corner. 
[00:15:09] Abbie: Yes. You know, what we found is like, in the people that we hire as tech concierge is that it's not so much do you have a background in computers? It's really not. 'cause a lot of this is like level one tech support. It's a lot of it is engaging.
[00:15:27] Yeah. And finding out what they need help with and then explaining it patiently and listening, right? It's not so much, it's a lot less technical and more relational. 
[00:15:44] Robin : Wow. I think that's, yeah, a very good way to describe it. Are you just in a small amount of these senior living communities.
[00:15:53] So you're spreading out all over? Yeah, we're 
[00:15:54] Abbie: spreading out all over. I know that we're throughout California, Arizona, we're in Florida, Ohio Michigan, Illinois. So, and we just continue to grow. 
[00:16:07] Robin : That's amazing. Abbie I really appreciate the information that you have given us. If someone wants to find out more about the Smarter Service, where would they go? Uh, 
[00:16:16] Abbie: they can go to the smarter service.com. 
[00:16:19] Robin : Oh, easy peasy. Thank you so much for your time. 
[00:16:23] Abbie: You're welcome, Robin. 
[00:16:24] Please make sure to subscribe to our podcast Informed Aging, tell your family and Friends about us you can find us at facebook.com/informed Aging. That's it for now. We're looking forward to our next visit.
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