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KBIA’s Health & Wealth Desk covers the economy and health of rural and underserved communities in Missouri and beyond. The team produces a weekly radio segment, as well as in-depth features and regular blog posts. The reporting desk is funded by a grant from the University of Missouri, and the Missouri Foundation for Health.Contact the Health & Wealth desk.

New Pilot Program May Allow Columbia-Area Seniors to Remain at Home Longer and More Safely

Rebecca Smith
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KBIA

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, in 2014 alone, there were more than 1.3 million Americans living in nursing homes. One research group in Columbia is working on developing technology that will help the elderly age better, more safely and hopefully - at home.

The Center or Eldercare and Rehabilitation Technology or Elder Tech has been doing research, development and testing of new and innovative technologies to assist older adults for more than 10 years. This group is an interdisciplinary group of individuals at the University of Missouri.

One of these projects the group is working on is a sensor technology program that is already installed in the bedrooms of some residents at Tiger Place, a local adult assisted living facility. These sensors monitor an individual’s movement to establish their gait and detect falls if they occur.

Now the Elder Tech team has taken the project another step further and installed the sensor program in three personal homes in Columbia.

Ann Gowans is one of the pilot program participants. Her home is one of the first three in Columbia to have the sensors installed and to start having data collected. She walked me through the sensor technology system in her home recently.

Credit Rebecca Smith / KBIA
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KBIA
A wall sensor is installed above the front door.

She explained that there are numerous sensors. Some on her walls and a bed sensor that is under her mattress.

“It takes my vitals,” Gowans said. “My blood pressure, my heart rate and so on.”

She added that the sensors did make uncomfortable the first few days they were installed.

“[It was] like I was being looked at or followed or something, but now I just completely forget them,” Gowans said.

Gowans actually has a long history is researching older individuals. She had a PhD in gerontology, which is the study of aging in society. She taught at MU for many years, and while retired she is still getting to participate in research related to gerontology – but now, at the age of 88, as a participant.  

This new sensor program that she is taking part in is called Sinclair@Home according to Marilyn Rantz, a professor at the Sinclair School of Nursing and one of the lead researchers of the Elder Tech research group.

Credit Sinclair School of Nursing
Marilyn Rantz

Rantz said that while the personal in-home sensor pilot program in Columbia has only been underway for three to four months in just a few houses, the sensor technology is not particularly new. Testing of the sensors has been underway at Tiger Place for 10 years.

“We actually have a couple of people who have lived with the technology that long and who've been a participant for that period of time,” Rantz said. “What we know now from the research that we've done is that there have been benefits of living with that technology.”

These benefits include fall detection and the collection of vital signs, but Rantz added that a recently completed journal article on the sensors showed an additional benefit that surprised her.

“In fact the first time I saw the data I was so stunned I said 'There's gotta be something wrong with this data’,” Rantz said.

This result that was so surprising was that the use of the sensor technology in Tiger Place, paired with nurse care coordination, significantly extended the length of stay for a resident in an assisted living facility.

“The Tiger Place project as a whole has essentially doubled the length of stay using care coordination,” Rantz said. “And we know that for those residents at Tiger Place that live with the technology we've actually doubled it again.”

According to a recent journal article by Elder Tech, the national average for stay in a nursing home is 1.8 years. This new data shows that living in Tiger Place with nurse care coordination increased that average stay to 2.6 years, and then the nurse care coordination paired with the sensors increased the average stay to 4.3 years.

The research group also found that there are substantial potential cost savings associated with the sensors. But Rantz added that the sensors could also be beneficial to older people because it would allow them to stay in their preferred home environment and it can give families a sense of security.

"[It was] like I was being looked at or followed or something, but now I just completely forget them."

Take Gowans. She has three grown daughters and none of them live in the area.

“The girls are much more comfortable with this,” Gowans said. “They've worried about it for a long time and I’m much more comfortable with it. So I like it very much.”

This sense of security comes not only from the fall detection abilities of the sensors, but also from the fact that the sensors have been found to predict health events like falls or infections or respiratory issues by noticing changes in one’s gait.

“They [the sensors] recognize when things are different and when they are not moving in the right direction,” Rantz says.

And then, hopefully, with the help of a nurse care coordinator the health problems can be avoided.

“The staff gets an alert, you get an alert, if you want your family to get an alert,” Rantz said. “To take a closer look and examine how you are feeling.”

Rantz says the nurse care coordinator is an essential part of the effectiveness of the sensor program, and Gowans said she talks with her coordinator about once a week through her iPad that came with the sensors.

“I will have an appointment on the iPad on FaceTime with the nurse say once a month,” Gowans said. “This is how I communicate with them.”

Credit Rebecca Smith / KBIA
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KBIA
Ann Gowans communicates with her nurse care coordinator through the FaceTime app on her iPad.

Now this sensor system paired with the nurse care coordination isn’t exactly cheap, at least at the moment.

“It won’t be as cheap as a cable bill,” Rantz said. “The initial cost analysis that we've done is about $350 a month.”

But Rantz says comparatively it’s a bargain.

“When you compare that to other high costs of healthcare it's nothing,” Rantz said. “To be able to stay in your home. It’s a very sound payment.”

For the sake of comparison, as of 2010, LongTermCare.gov estimated that the average costs for living in a one-bedroom assistant living facility was more than $3,000 a month, and for a semi-private room in a nursing home, they estimated more than $6,000 a month.

So that’s already a huge difference, but Rantz said the prices will come down over time as the sensors are commercialized by Elder Tech’s commercial partner in St. Louis.

Rantz said she hopes in the ten years the sensors will be common in the homes of older people.

"It won't be as cheap as a cable bill. The initial cost analysis that we've done is about $350 a month."

“So that people can stay in their homes or stay in their assisted living facility or wherever they are in elder housing or whatever they chose to do,” Rantz said.

And Gowans agrees. She said she has many hobbies including painting, growing plants, cooking and swimming – and staying at home allows her to carry on with all the things she loves.

“I think it helps people to stay in their homes,” Gowans said. “I think it helps them to stay independent - to stay busy - to stay with their stuff and do their things, as long as they possibly can.”

Rebecca Smith is an award-winning reporter and producer for the KBIA Health & Wealth Desk. Born and raised outside of Rolla, Missouri, she has a passion for diving into often overlooked issues that affect the rural populations of her state – especially stories that broaden people’s perception of “rural” life.
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