Originally published August 15 2005
Technology advances can help you stay healthier
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
New gadgets have been released recently to help you stay healthier, such as pill bottles that tell you when to take your medication or vitamins, as well as smart band aids that can take your temperature.
They sound like sci-fi, or entries from a Sharper Image catalog circa 2015, but they're technologies that exist today.
With the United States' population rapidly aging, electronic devices to monitor seniors' health and well-being at home are a growing new sector.
A few are on the market now; more may hit the U.S. market as soon as next year.
"We have the potential to aim our innovation engine at the age wave challenge and change the way we do health care from a crisis-driven, assembly- line, hospital approach to a personal-driven approach, with people taking care of themselves with help from family, friends and technologies," said Eric Dishman, director of health research and innovation for Intel.
"Intel went down this path after a study of 300 households in the United States, South America and Europe where we sent social scientists out to live with and observe them," Dishman said.
"We study the needs of seniors and Boomers to figure out how all the gear we're putting into people's lives for digital entertainment can be used for health and wellness," he said.
There is one that reminds patients to take their medications at programmed intervals -- and even comes with a built-in pill dispenser.
As Forrester's Boehm noted in a report, Americans expect someone else -- an insurer or Medicare -- to pick up the tab for preventive care like immunizations and routine exams -- and rarely make impulse health care purchases.
On the other hand, she says, consumers have shown they're willing to pay for treatments like acupuncture and chiropractic even when they're not covered by insurance -- once they're convinced those solutions work.
Elder tech devices have already taken off in Europe and Japan, where the populations are older than in the United States, technologies like cell phones are more advanced and the health care system is sometimes willing to foot the bill.
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