Technology continues to advance at a rapid rate and has become unavoidable in our daily lives. The more reliant virtually every industry becomes on evolving tech solutions, a natural downside is that more ordinary people begin to lose touch with how it all works.
Unfortunately, when it comes to elderly people, falling out of touch with tech comes with all kinds of risks as the elderly are often the most targeted individuals for cyber crimes. To help ensure none of your loved ones fall prey to the many dangers lurking out there, here are five tips to keep your elderly parents and other loved ones safe while using tech.
1. Consider Using Monitoring Tools
Most people today, whether young or old, use smartphones, as they provide a wide array of conveniences for us in our daily lives.
Whether it’s just staying in touch with loved ones via messaging apps or social media, streaming our favorite shows, or surfing the net for any number of reasons, having a mobile has become a necessity for everyone—including the elderly.
However, while smartphones can be a great way to help us stay in regular contact with loved ones, they can also pose many risks. To ensure your elderly loved ones are safe online at all times, monitoring apps are a terrific way to keep up with everything your loved one is doing.
According to crypto and tech writer Lora Pance, tools like mSpy are among the best apps for this purpose. In the full review from TechReport, Pance looks at metrics like its key features, usability, pricing, as well as its functionality.
Apps like these can be used to monitor virtually every aspect of a loved one’s device. This means you can keep tabs on everything they’re doing, track their whereabouts in real time, and access everything from their call logs and messages to their social media accounts.
The kind of access they provide means there’s never a need to stress about what an elderly loved one might be doing online as their activities can be monitored and threats identified so they can be taught how to spot these kinds of dangers on their own.
Use Medical Alert Systems
Another essential tool to keep a better eye on elderly loved ones is a medical alert system. Given that most elderly people tend to begin suffering from health complications the older they get, this system can be invaluable in alerting emergency services if needed.
These devices enable seniors to send out a call for help in the case of a sudden emergency, like a fall, sudden illness, or any other distressing situation. Most medical alert systems come with a wearable pendant or wristband that features a button to press for assistance.
Other very useful benefits they come with include a connected 24-hour monitoring service, ensuring that help is always available, no matter the time of day. With these systems, family members can feel reassured as their loved ones will have immediate access to help, especially in situations where every second counts.
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3. Install Smart Home Devices
The thing about smart devices is that they can now be applied to pretty much any type of electronic device and will one day become far more intuitive and self-sustaining if they’re eventually integrated with Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) capabilities. When it comes to the elderly, smart home devices can be essential for keeping them safe and independent.
As they come with features like smart doorbells and security cameras, and accompanying features like automated lighting to enhance security, these devices can offer a range of benefits to elderly people. Essentially keeping watch on their safety at all times, they have a dual role of both preventing crime and acting as crucial security barriers in the event that there is a breach.
On the other hand, voice assistants can make it easier for elderly people to control their other systems and can make daily tasks easier. These technologies provide peace of mind for seniors and their families by providing elderly loved ones with the means to better protect themselves too as they are often integrated with AI and IoT features.
At the same time, they give family members an option to keep an eye on their loved ones remotely in case there’s ever an emergency.
4. Set Up Medication Management Apps
Basically, everything in today’s world that used to be done manually can now be done via an app. When it comes to the health challenges of many seniors, being able to navigate, source, and remember to take the various regimes of medications they may be prescribed can be daunting.
Fortunately, these days there are some great medication management solutions out there. These include a range of options like smart apps and automated dispensers. These tools can make these tasks much simpler to manage and lessen the risk of there being any mistakes with doses or the frequency of certain medications.
These solutions work by sending alerts and keeping a log of what you’ve taken to better manage a treatment course. Meanwhile some feature capabilities like barcode scanners so the details of every medication don’t have to be manually entered.
5. Educate Them About Online Safety
The thing about technology and its constant evolution is that there are always going to be tech products that are designed to make it easier to use other tech products. However, when it comes to the elderly, it can be counter-productive to make them use tech to help themselves with tech.
Instead, educating the elderly about the various risks they face online or in general can go much further in equipping them to deal with these situations better and more independently. In most cases, seniors don’t necessarily have any intellectual impediment to understanding how these dangers work.
When it comes to tech, they often simply get left behind as they never get the chance to actually use it like younger people from newer generations do.
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Given the chance to close that gap, most elderly people can probably learn how to navigate a range of technologies with ease and will likely become quite proficient at it too. In such circumstances, all they usually need is a chance to learn for themselves.
