Remote monitoring is important for everyone and especially the elderly. In previous years when most families lived as extended families, the elderly grandparents would take care of their grandchildren, while their children took care of them in terms of provision.

Under this setup, the health status of the elderly would be monitored easily by the people that they lived and constantly interacted. However, with the advancements in medical technology, people now live longer and have a higher quality of life. The transition from living in extended families to living in nuclear family units meant that most elderly people had to take care of themselves in their sunset years, a time when they need more help and remote monitoring than ever before.

With depleting sources of strength and the fact that most people begin losing their memory as they age, most elderly people have been forced to find alternative settlements such as remote monitoring. They are either placed in assisted communities, homes for nursing the elderly, or other facilities that offer long-term care to the elderly.

However, the desire of most of these people put in institutions that care for the elderly is to stay in their homes and grow old as they are taken care of by their families even if it is through remote monitoring.

Developments in remote monitoring for patients and telemedicine

With the developments being made in the area of remote monitoring for patients and telemedicine,  most elderly people can now stay in their homes. The discovery of low-cost and easy-to-operate remote monitoring of patients technology employed together with telehealth has enabled elderly people to be taken care of in the comfort of their homes.

This has also helped them to be maintained as part of the communities that they are used to. The elderly are now able to use this technology in creating direct connections with their doctors or care give whenever they need to use either voice or video services. The doctors and caregivers are also able to collect the health data that they need from their patients every day without suffering the challenges of logistics or disruptions that are normally experienced when the elderly have to visit the hospitals.

Remote monitoring of patients enables the health care providers to get the current health status of their patients in the comfort of their homes. This means that they no longer have to rely on the old patient data. This information mainly entails the status of their vitals such as blood pressure, oxygen saturation, respiratory rate, and blood glucose levels among others.

The acquired information is then analyzed using artificial intelligence through various machine learning algorithms depending on the information being sought. This information is also useful in the timely spotting of any developing trends by the health care professionals in the health status of their patients for them to take the necessary measures to treat or control the situation.

This, therefore, helps to prevent extra costs and unnecessary admissions to the hospital after the condition worsens if it is not noted in time. The healthcare givers are also able to give better solutions to developing health problems using remote monitoring of patients when the early warning signs are noted in time.

The use of remote patient monitoring coupled with telehealth, therefore, helps in filling the gaps that exist between the home and hospital visits by the elderly. They allow the healthcare givers to engage the patients regularly through taking their biometrics and general assessments.

This can even be done daily when necessary. This way, they can keep track of the health of their elderly patients and even receive early warning signs in the event of deterioration of their conditions and offer prompt interventions to save their lives. Examples of interventions that can be made include: gathering more information from the patient through a voice or video call to come up with better solutions, sending healthcare workers to the patient’s home for deeper assessment, or getting these elderly patients to the hospital for urgent care or emergency admission if necessary.