All over the world, there is a significant rise in the percentage of rising aging population. Apart from the US, it is also seen in UK, China, Japan and other growing and developing countries of the world. According to research:
- The present 12% of the aging population numbering to a little more than six hundred million will rise to 22% to nearly 2 billion by 2050. This is just the people who are 60 years old.
- The same research report shows that the number of people above 80 years will be even more than that. It says that the current 14.5% of these elders is expected to grow to 20% by 2030, 20 years less than the previous age category.
Industry experts and the governments think that with such a fast change in the demographic, there will be a serious effect in the economic, social and most importantly in the health conditions of the people and the nation.
Need for a change
In order to ensure that the economies stay unaffected with these changes in the aging population, it is essentially required to focus more of Philadelphia Corporation for aging and make necessary adjustments on the care process and the delivery pathways immediately.
These changes should be made with respect to specific medical conditions suffered by the elder populace such as:
- Chronic diseases
- Diabetes
- Heart diseases
- Different comorbidities
- Physical and mental disabilities as well as
- Polypharmacy requirements.
This will ensure that the older population and the geriatric patients are taken well care off and the chances of a breakout of the geriatric diseases are minimized. A few of these diseases include:
- Obesity
- Atherosclerosis
- Dementia
- Osteoporosis
- Osteoarthritis and
- Cardiovascular diseases.
All these medical conditions require immediate attention, proper diagnosis, speedy treatments and continual supervision provided by a qualified nurse and a professional caregiver.
Need for AI
It is a worrying fact that there are not enough trained nurses and enough physicians to attend each and every elder suffering from different medical conditions. This means that a major part of the elderlies will be deprived from proper and timely healthcare.
In order to help the health caregivers to meet with this deprived elderlies, Artificial Intelligence or AI plays a significant role. This will also help the US healthcare industry to meet with the shortfall of healthcare professionals and physicians that is expected to be anywhere between 40,800 and 104,900 by the end of 2030.
In this situation AI will also be able to offload some of the care-pathways by automating it. in fact, in this given time and age, Artificial Intelligence is used in all aspects of healthcare delivery including:
- Intelligent tracking
- Gathering biometric information
- Diagnosis of diseases.
All these help the caregivers as well as the patients and their families to know about their conditions as well as the treatment procedures. In fact, AI will facilitate the treatments and help the physicians to treat the elderly patients more effectively and efficiently.
This will help in other different ways such as:
- Better and continual home health monitoring to ensure quick diagnosis and proper treatment
- Help in assisted daily living with the smart wearable devices that will reduce the risks of falling and needs for emergency care by the elderly and geriatric patients and
- It will act as a virtual companion for the elderlies in case there is a lack of skilled caregivers.
Needless to say, this will help the healthcare industry in their research and development process. Experts say, that AI can even help the researchers to understand the cause of aging and create ways in which this process can be delayed.
Nurse in your home
AI in elder care is just like having a nurse in the home, virtually. It is for the several benefits that AI provides in taking care of the elders that has made it the most promising inclusion. Several studies and researches indicate that the market for AI in elder care is supposed to touch the US$5.5 billion mark by the end of 2022.
AI will play the most significant role in the society to ensure that the future health of the elderlies is safe and secure.
- It will send medication reminders to the elderly which is a common issue among them that often gives rise to complications. Apart from forgetting to take a medication entirely, they are also prone to duplicate, overdose or even take unnecessary medicines further aggravating the conditions. With the use of AI and smartphone app adherence to the doctor’s prescriptions by the elders is ensured.
- In addition to that, this will also help the elder patients to manage their conditions, often by them. This will be leveraged by the smartphone cameras and the AI algorithm. This will send automatic alert by monitoring their medication-taking telling them whether they are talking it properly or not.
These enhanced features are very helpful for the elderly patients suffering from severe medical conditions and difficulties in:
- Vision
- Conitio
- Dexterity and
- memory lapses.
This nurse in the room around the clock will provide complete peace in mind with the sensors placed in the corridors, in the toilet, flush-detectors, beds, and everywhere an elderly patient needs to go to perform their day to day activities.
The best companion
AI in elder care is the best companion for both the home care givers as well as the elderly patients. This will track the health indexes, the progress as well as the adverse events if any and send alerts well in advance.
The physicians will be able top design a better care plan by identifying the risks in it more proactively. The machine learning algorithms will leverage analyzing the historical data to design better predictive measures.
This will help the patients to establish a much stronger relationship between their daily life habits, normal or unusual with their care plans that they need to follow.
With all these benefits of AI in elderly care, this is the best companion that both the home health care agencies as well as the elder patient population should invest on.
