AAHSA, CAST and Wii

Posted on | October 24, 2007 | Comments Off on AAHSA, CAST and Wii

Warming up to Technology

I have had a relationship with American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging (AAHSA) for several years and recently accepted the role of Senior Fellow in Health Policy for AAHSA’s Center of Aging Services Technologies (CAST).

During the coming week, at AAHSA’s national meeting in Orlando, CAST will be demonstrating home and community based programs and transformative technologies to enrich, enable and connect seniors intent on maintaining an independent lifestyle for as long as possible.

At the AAHSA meeting, there will be a lot of discussion about the concept of Home-Centered Health Care transformation because AAHSA CEO Larry Minnix, AAHSA’s leadership and most of its membership have been in the middle of it. They were some of the first to sense a fundamental increase in family complexity and the desire of most seniors to age in place. But they also realized this wouldn’t be feasible without greater support — and that includes caregivers, services and enabling technology to foster connectivity.

CAST was a forward-looking platform to unite AAHSA member organizations with leaders from the worlds of finance, technology and entertainment, new entrants to healthcare and aging services, who in addition to offreing financial assets and IT expertise, also offered hope for improving older people’s quality of life, while reducing health care costs, encouraging healthy behavior change and providing caregivers with support.

One example of how these new entrants are transforming traditional stereotypes of aging is the use of game technology by seniors with Wii™. This new video game system from Nintendo is helping to create community among seniors and across generations. At AAHSA, seniors will be teaming up with children and grandchildren to compete in some intergenerational fun and it may be the first time grandparents prevail against younger generations with a video game. Trish just bought one for us, and I installed it — not too complicated. The question is, how will Trish do against 7-year-old Anabella?

The point is, the definition of health is opening up, and those of us who have "owned it," need to now "share it" if we expect to continue to "lead it."

Mike Magee