it For the elderly
Samarth Technology Solution helps the elderly people navigate through the 21st century India by making IT apps user-friendly for them. An exclusive interaction with its Director Anuradha Das Mathur, who is also the Co-Founder and supports its industry alliances, research and advocacy. Excerpts:
Give us brief details about Samarth Technologies’ work with the elderly from an IT perspective Samarth with its mission, is to bring happiness and peace of mind to the elderly and the children who care about them, has now begun to offer a full-range of family-quality services for elderly across the country, which may otherwise require as son or daughter to look after. These range from health and clinical care, ensuring safety and security, emergency response, home maintenance, errands, travel and even engagement and mental stimulation
The Samarth Care plan is delivered through a network of educated young women, who act as proxy daughters with a clear role to understand the concerns of the seniors and provide the last mile comfort. The proxy daughters are supported by a centralised operations team which manages regular communication, monitoring, a network of service providers, know-how and information. The combination ensures that the program is not just trustworthy and empathetic but also very resourceful and reliable.
The global survey of Indian elderly and their children gave some key insights: • Elders are not very comfortable to use of apps as they exist today. • There is a need to match the advancements in mobile technology with on-the-ground response system to significantly reduce the negative impact of healthrelated events. The Samarth Technology Solution is geared towards achieving following objectives to help elderly. • Adapt the technical capabilities into elder friendly delivery • Monitor the data to predict / recognise health and safety events • Appropriately Respond to such events / predictions for suitable corrective actions • Empower the stakeholders with information for most suited response. • Small Value Added Services e.g. Reminders, task lists etc either directly managed by elders or supported thru Samarth’s support system to reduce mis-happening’s. At the core of technology solution is the mobile app, which provides interface to collect information, trigger emergency response system, deliver and monitor services and build an empowered care giver network.
There is ongoing development to enhance the proposition leveraging deep learning with analytics through visuals, voice and ambient sensors remote monitoring of health, event-based trigger for emergency response e.g., fall detection, motion sensing etc., remote monitoring of safety and security and an analytic capability to identify early signals, for prophetic responses to situations best suited for independent elderly living.
THE MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION FOR THE ELDERLY ARE THE INTERNET, THEMATIC TELEVISION CHANNELS AND MAGAZINES. IN THEIR EFFORT TO TAKE GREATER RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR PERSONAL HEALTH, PHYSICAL STATUS AND INDEPENDENT LIVING CONDITIONS, THE ELDERLY USERS NEED TO BE MORE INFORMED THROUGH THE USE OF INTERNET, THEMATIC TELEVISION CHANNELS, MAGAZINES AND OTHER SOURCES OF INFORMATION
This “Backup elder care” helps employees reduce the amount of care giving work as well as stress that they end up carrying to work. For more details on how to use this visit their website www.samarth.community.
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How do the elderly people manage and find the IT solutions you provide in terms of usage?
In the rapidly aging population, the elderly are called upon to adapt to new technology and the demands of modern society. It is widely accepted that elder individuals show low adjustment to the advent of new technologies compared to younger generations, either because they do not have the technological experience or because of their current health status
Furthermore, at their effort to use new technologies, they usually face many difficulties deriving from demographic characteristics such as income, education, geographical location, possible disabilities, as well as difficulties related to the complexity of new technology. Other contributing factors for this low adjustment to new technologies are the lack of incentives, economical obstacles, digital skills and appropriate training. A commonly held view is that the market is not currently investing enough on innovations for the elder users, such as comprehensive and user friendly services for healthier living conditions. In addition, many products and services often are not appropriate to the needs of elder users and exacerbating the sense of frustration
The main sources of information for the elderly are the Internet, thematic television channels and magazines. In their effort to take greater responsibility for their personal health, physical status and independent living conditions, the elderly users need to be more informed through the use of Internet, thematic television channels, magazines and other sources of information. We ensure this with a combination of a uniquely managed network of Care counsellors across the country, curated service partners and products, and proprietary media and community, which is backed by a strong backbone of technology that integrates services at the backend as well as delivers an effective customer experience to the users. Our care counsellors help the elderly with the technology. Technology may involve the use of most simple everyday electrical appliances (TV, kitchen, vacuum cleaner, dishwasher etc.) or other more complex machines (ATMs, PCs, mobile phones etc.) premising the ability to properly use them and our care counsellors assist the elderly just the way they would do with their parents.
In is widely accepted that the use of new technology by the elderly population has a beneficial effect on their quality of life. It is an essential step and to ensure this we train and equip our care counsellors to help them to familiarize with technology, thus removing all fears of new technology use.