How we will grow old (more gracefully) in the future

Let’s imagine that, Heaven forbid, I were to suffer a severe stroke right after finishing this text that would leave me with considerable health problems. Or another scenario, I were to develop early onset Alzheimer’s despite only being 36 years old, which is not as unusual as it might sound. For millions of people, these very scenarios are a reality. Their relatives are often left with no other option than having them taken care of in a nursing home because they would not be able to meet their care needs any other way.

This is the shape of things today, in 2017. However, in just a few years, things could look very different. After all, technologies designed to help mobility-impaired or care-dependent people and avoid them from having to be cared for in a home or hospital, were developed long ago. We call them ambient assisted living (AAL) solutions.

The technological solutions are there…

Sensors can monitor heart defects, for example, by measuring respiration rate, blood pressure and heartbeat and passing the readings on to the attending physician. Other assistants protect dementia patients from the potential consequences of their forgetfulness. Should my hob really stay turned on? Should a person of trust be informed because the patient has just left their usual surroundings and could be wandering around aimlessly? For many of the 1.2 million dementia patients in Germany alone, solutions like these could mean them not having to move into a care home.

A third field involves multimedia applications designed to combat social isolation. After all, what use is it to occupants if they can stay longer in their own homes thanks to smart technology, only to be ‘socially impoverished’? Applications with video screen technology allow colourful glimpses into grandchildren’s everyday lives. A virtual butler becomes an open door to the outside world. He knows what’s going on in the local area as well as public transport timetables, can order food or flowers and manage appointments with others. He can, in other words, network care-dependent people with the real world; good news for those who currently often have no other choice than to hand themselves over to the care of a nursing home.

…but haven’t caught on yet.

And yet nowadays, we are seeing great many players struggling for successful market penetration and lasting profitability. Why is this? Unlike before, the problem is no longer the availability or affordability of the technology as ‘everything exists’, although in many cases this still refers to proprietary stand-alone solutions. The problems are much more a lack of acceptance, a lack of interoperability between these stand-alone solutions or utterly unsustainable business models.

The market is waiting on these models. The evergrowing numbers of older people in Europe are united by a common wish. Most of them want to live for as long as possible in their own homes. Surveys indicate that half of over 65-year-olds would happily use reminder functions or alarm systems if needed; that is to say, technologies that allow care-dependent people to be more or less self-reliant and lead their lives independently. Our advantage as Hager Group is that we have been making these homes secure and more comfortable for over 60 years. So we’re convinced that with our experience in smart building systems and our expertise in the smart home sector we can make an important contribution in bringing us a big step closer towards fulfilling people’s desire for comfort and security in all living situations and environments.

We’re at home in the home

For this reason, we work specifically on creating AAL solutions that can connect with every smart home. A key aspect here is also their modular expandability, which means that people have to be able to buy or register for additional AAL solutions to suit their living and family situation. In one specific case, this could involve retrofitting intelligent, virtually invisible sensors. In other cases, it could perhaps consist of a piece of software that interprets the data captured by existing sensors a bit differently and activates certain scenarios for personal protection. That’s how we at Hager Group are accommodating the trend in the AAL business area whereby the boundaries between the residential and functional building segments are becoming noticeably blurred. In general terms, the trend is shifting from inpatient care to semi-outpatient or outpatient care. Private institutions and charities are hardly building any segregated in-patient nursing homes any more, but mostly ‘combination projects’ with attached assisted living facilities.

The future will see an increasing number of concepts for serviced living, shared accommodation for dementia patients and intergenerational residential areas that are integrated as closely as possible into existing infrastructures. Being an end-to-end provider in the residential and commercial segment clearly sets Hager Group apart, something we intend to play on to move even further forward. We are better equipped than many of our competitors, thanks to our technical expertise and capacity for innovation, as well as our partnerships with companies like Bluelinea. We are working tirelessly with Bluelinea to develop a joint portfolio of services that we also intend to provide in Germany as part of a joint venture.

Understanding our customers and involving them in the development process

It is always important to involve our customers as closely as possible in the decision-making chain; by this I mean all customers, buyers and users. AAL technologies must not have a stigmatising effect or be seen as ‘just for old people’; they need to be adapted to the living situation of each particular set of users.

We are consequently in close contact with housing companies, property developers and supporters of the social economy, as well as with electricians and wholesalers. Our aim is to ascertain the needs that actually motivate end users and learn how we can cater to them as comprehensively as possible with an intelligent combination of technology and services. After all, our endeavours always begin and end with people.

Even going back 60 years, our strength was our focus on customers and integrating them as closely as possible in the (further) development of our solutions. We are continuing this very tradition in the field of ambient assisted living solutions, and this in turn will mean that in a few years’ time they will no longer be a far-off possibility; they will be a practical reality.