Internet of Things Set To Change the Face of Dementia Care (theguardian.com) 58
The internet of things, also known as connected things, have been in the news lately for all the wrong reasons, but that doesn't mean they are utterly rubbish. Smart bottles that dispense the correct dose of medication at the correct time, for instance, coupled with digital assistants, and chairs that know how long you've sat in them are among the devices set to change the face of care for those living with dementia. From a report on The Guardian: While phone calls and text messages help to keep people in touch, says Idris Jahn, head of health and data at IoTUK, a program within the government-backed Digital Catapult, problems can still arise, from missed appointments to difficulties in taking medication correctly. But he adds, connected sensors and devices that collect and process data in real time could help solve the problem. "For [people living with dementia] the sensors would be more in the environment itself, so embedded into the plug sockets, into the lights -- so it is effectively invisible. You carry on living your life but in the background things will monitor you and provide feedback to people who need to know," he said. "That might be your carer, it might be your family, it might be your clinician." The approach, he added, has the potential to change the way care is given. "It is having that cohesive mechanism to put everyone into the loop, which I think hasn't existed in the past and it is something that people need."
Good use cases don't eliminate need for security! (Score:5, Interesting)
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Security isn't needed if you give away too much data to process
There is something to be said for safety in numbers, or in the herd. The more different IOT devices that are out there, the risk of any one getting attacked is lowered, and the likelihood an attack is discovered before it hits your specific device is increased. Of course there is also some increase in risk of attack on a specific device type just because it is popular.
Wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
Given the example provided, a bottle automatically dispenses the right amount of pills at the right time. IoT simply gives someone the ability to make a whole lot of bottles behave differently, giving extra or no medication on time. In both cases severe complications can arise, so the "benefit" turns into a major detriment very quickly.
Hackers of all kinds daily prove why there is no possible way to have Internet Utopia. It is foolish to have such a belief, and propagating that belief does temporary good for some who profit and damage to many overall. How many extra fees do you have to pay for everything today for "protection"?
IoT has trivial world value. "My Fridge" on the internet sounds great until someone orders you $90,000 worth of caviar to fill it with. Sure, some protections can be put in place but you can not protect everything all the time.
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The risk isn't just about your data. If a device is roped into a botnet, at the time it's supposed to be delivering a carefully calibrated and timed dosage it's instead DOSing some system for all that it's worth. These devices are surely never tested under "extreme load" scenarios because they're not intended to be used that way.
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Why Internet? (Score:2, Informative)
The examples given in TFS are just Things, not Internet. None of them need to be connected to 4chan.
Right to Die (Score:5, Insightful)
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Then what.
Those that left, fine. Those that chose to stay will still need care.
Mind, I *totally* agree with you.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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As a board certified neurologist - you are either naive or selling snake oil.
As not a board certified neurologist, I agree with you completely.
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New treatments for Alzheimer's show promise, but your world still seems too sunny for my taste. Ever worked on inpatient units at a hospital?
Even these at best, slow the progression of the problem.
My family is already under orders that if I somehow screw up and don't take myself out beforehand, and end up with Alzheimer's, in a nursing home - I want no part of merely extending the process and enriching the nursing home.
That would be like choosing to drown over the course of 10 years, instead of getting it done as quickly as possible.
Because either way, you are gonna drown.
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What people suffering from dementia really need is a cure for dementia. Almost all causes of dementia are either potentially treatable or preventable.
Its always the victim's fault. If only they ate right, exercised properly, and took the right maintenance drugs (or didn't take any depending on your view) why, we'd just live forever!
In fact in almost every case, physician-assisted suicide / euthenasia is or will relatively soon be a cop-out.
Whoa there fellow. You are going to need to produce some facts before declaring a fact. There are great difficulties parsing that sentence in the first place with future facts and cop outs.
Cancer, heart disease, stroke, and other leading causes of death are all within realistic shooting distance of advanced technologies and a new group of researchers that have finally figured out that aging is really the big disease that everyone has previously ignored but in fact is perhaps the only disease we really need to treat in most cases.
Oh hell - if we'd only known it was just that simple. I have some books from the early 1970's that read like your post. Those born then ar
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This is a very relevant response. As the son of a person with advanced Alzheimers I can tell you there is no device out there that is going to make my dad's life better. As soon as this device beeps or somehow tries to interact with him I know what the response will be: 1. Ignore it, 2. Ask someone why it is doing what it is doing. 3. Break it and throw it away in frustration. I saw him rip the windshield wipers of his car because he did not know how to turn them off (yeah, don't even get me started on why
Internet Thing (Score:2)
What people suffering from Dementia really need is the option to decide to leave this world on their own terms while the disease still hasn't robbed them of the ability to make those type of decisions
Is there an Internet Thing for that?
Can we please stop (Score:1)
Entertaining pieces with the words could, should, might, or may in the title as though they are fact? Pretty please? Some of us are actually interested in what is possible and happening right NOW.
Re:Can we please stop (Score:4, Interesting)
words and phrases aimed at creating an impression that a specific or meaningful statement has been made, when instead only a vague or ambiguous claim has actually been communicated. This can enable the speaker to then deny the specific meaning if the statement is challenged.
It's part of the Dumbing down [wikipedia.org] process.
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It's part of the Dumbing down [wikipedia.org] process.
So is using wikipedia itself - people used to know how to not only find but to use supported academic and scientific references coherently, not linking to a populist wikipedia page is all they know.
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It's part of the Dumbing down [wikipedia.org] process.
So is using wikipedia itself - people used to know how to not only find but to use supported academic and scientific references coherently, not linking to a populist wikipedia page is all they know.
The Wikipedia page is cited to give someone else the chance to look at it and maybe learn something. I can't give people my education, but can show them where to start their own.
IOTUK? (Score:2)
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If you build it, they will come. (Score:4, Insightful)
Once these systems are available, they WILL be made mandatory, "For your protection and in case of an emergency." Somewhere in the bowels of the NSA, there are analysts drooling at a full-on implementation of "1984."
put staff out of work (Score:2)
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You MIGHT be able to get away with a slightly higher patient-to-staff ratio in some memory care situations, but lol if you think it's going to obviate the need for humans in situations where the patients are utterly helpless in being able to feed or bathe or otherwise care for themselves (i.e. what dementia inevitably does to people who go through it). They need even more specialized care than those in nursing homes because they are utterly oblivious to their situation in addition to being physically unable
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As the child of somebody who spent her last few years in a nursing home, I think that having as many machines helping out as possible would be wonderful.
My mother was disabled, but still very sharp mentally.
She needed help to be able to use the toilet, get washed, have food provided for her, etc.
Although the staff were basically OK, the number of staff wasn't that high and so she sometimes had to wait a considerable amount of time for a staff
member to respond to her buzzer requesting help. (Particularly wit
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So why have staff at all, just stick them in a an automated box in the corner, with a little view window where you can watch them like a pot plant every now and again or better yet, have the automated box simply send a text once a week to confirm their existence, SchrÃdinger's nursing home.
The whole idea is not, to turn them into profit centres, it is to employ people suited to that industry, to look after them and provide them with human, FUCKING HUMAN, care and compassion. So they can continue to fe
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Case in point - not dementia related - but absolutely on the point of HUMAN INTERACTION. My last visit to the VA for assistance with chronic pain (over 30 years of neurological damage to lower spine) was via teleconference, with a 'treatment agent' that would have been fired from a 3rd grade class for lack of empathy, inability to properly evaluate patient, and total anal retention syndrome with requirements to be the sole and absolute controlling agent.
The idiot even had the gall to tell me how to install
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The whole idea is not, to turn them into profit centres, it is to employ people suited to that industry, to look after them and provide them with human, FUCKING HUMAN, care and compassion.
Hold on there Cowboy - that's crazy talk!
But yeah, today's system is based upon getting money, and success is considered as extracting as much of the "guest's" wealth as possible before they pass, or they expire as soon as possible after their estate is gone.
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Oh goody (Score:5, Funny)
So now when my senile grandfather says that his pill bottles and bathroom fixtures are talking to him... he may actually be right?
Synergy (Score:2)
I can see the synergy between elderly people and IoT devices -- the elderly rarely use the internet, so so the IoT devices can use that otherwise idle bandwidth to run DoS attacks -- it's a win-win for everyone!
So happy about this (Score:2)
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I have long viewed dementia care as a perfect realm for some kind of AI. I kind of figured it'll be a combination of Google Glass, Uber self driving cars and things like that.
Good heavens - you have absolutely no idea of what dementia is.
IoT stuff only works EARLY in the disease! (Score:2)
Dementia is not just memory loss. It is also cognitive decline, mis-remembering and at times hallucinations.
IoT only works in the "dementia use case" when the patient can remember what to do when a light flashes, the pill door opens or some other device alert occurs. And as the patient declines and there are fewer and fewer "cognitive enough" periods, these systems will not produce the expected reaction from the patient. And after a while (a pretty short while actually) the patient won't know and won't care
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This.
A larger market may be in devices for nondemented with chronic diseases. For instance, someone who has to take medication several times a day. I depend on reminders sent through my Apple Watch for this.
Hack people (Score:2)
So Humans are directed by the machines, and we can hack the machine. Hence we can hack humans.
Humans can perform telephone DDoS. And moreover, they can be hacked as citizen: Now go to the polling both and vote for candidate X (replace X by the current political bogeyman)
How convenient. We can once again save on care. (Score:1)
But can we really? Do we expect our old and frail citizens to achieve what we typically can't, namely tame our ill-behaving devices? Think about it. When those wonderful "things" are bored from talking grandpa into taking his medicine they help other people with running a DDoS. And while doing that they conveniently forget what they were supposed to do for grandpa. I for one am not looking forward to all those sad news items about dead bodies in "modern" homes.
Private, secure, open standards required for IoT! (Score:2)
This is a great example of how the "Internet of Things" can be beneficial, but I worry that in our current American (and in some cases, global) climate of hyper-capitalist "I'll get mine, get yours, and then lock up the source so nobody else can have it...that's the way to MY perpetual growth!" ideal, such benefits won't be realized.
Consider for instance electronic medical records. EMRs are in theory, a great benefit and both patients and medical professionals were promised the wonders of the age. Instan
Just like James Bond (Score:2)