Gadgets for seniors « Silver Buzz Cafe

How To Cut Your Phone Bills

Telephones are essential, especially for seniors. They provide a lifeline in terms of emergency and they help us keep in touch with relatives and friends. They can also be used for an Internet connection, which has become an essential part of modern life for those who have taken the plunge and learned how to use it. However, unlike the old days, there is a huge, sometimes bewildering and often unnecessary range of services available via that thin connection that comes into our homes. There are also alternatives. [...]

iPhone/iPad Apps For Seniors – Part 5 – Productivity Aids

In earlier articles in this series we’ve looked at iPhone/iPod/iPad Apps related to health, travel, news and weather. Today we’ll look at productivity aids that seniors should find particularly helpful. [...]

Everyone’s Guide to Medical Equipment – Part 22 – Implant Technology

All of the equipment that we have looked at in previous articles in this series, ranging from scalpels to Positron Emission Tomography ( PET) machines, are normally used in medical facilities, laboratories, home care or emergency situations. Today we’ll look at devices, current, experimental and envisioned, that are designed to be permanently or temporarily implanted in a patient. [...]

iPhone/iPad Apps For Seniors – Part 4 – Weather Tools

In earlier articles in this series we’ve looked at health, travel and news Apps for the iPhone and iPad. Both devices come with a standard, but rather limited Weather tool. It’s adequate, but it only provides minimum and maximum temperatures and an icon for rain, cloud, sunshine etc. for the list of cities that the user selects. There are many other tools that provide better local or wide area information. [...]

iPhone/iPad Apps For Seniors - Part 3 - News Tools

In previous articles in this series we described iPhone/iPad Apps that are related to health issues and that travelers will find useful. Today we’ll look at news Apps. The browser on the iPhone is perfectly usable for reading newspaper and other media web sites, but there are also Apps supplied by media companies and news enthusiasts. We’ve compiled a list of our favorite news Apps. [...]

iPhone Apps For Seniors - Part 1 - Health Related

There are now tens of thousands of application (“Apps”) in the iPhone/iTunes store, many of them free and hardly any costing more than a few Dollars. Most Apps also run on the iPad, which has a much larger screen. In this series of articles we’ll look at ones that seniors will find useful, starting with health related ones. [...]

Playgrounds For Seniors

There’s an old joke that revolves around the observation that, in some ways, adults become more like children as they age. The Brits seem to have noticed the similarities. A new London playground, which is due to be built by this spring in Hyde Park, will have six pieces of equipment built in Denmark, including a stationary bicycle, a cross-trainer and a sit-up bench. That wouldn’t be unusual, except that the playground is for seniors! [...]

Auto Safety Features For Senior Drivers

One day last week we set off for San Francisco in the pouring rain. We have to drive a winding, single lane road to reach the nearest freeway. A few hundred yards from home we came up behind a senior lady driving at 35 MPH in a zone with a 55 MPH limit. This road is deadly. It’s nicknamed “Blood Alley” by the locals for good cause. She was putting on her makeup! This article is about modern auto safety features, all of which can be particularly useful to seniors. [...]

New Technology May Reduce Risks for Fall Prone Seniors

We’ve written about the dangers that falls pose to seniors in many articles in the past, including one on “Avoiding and Dealing With Falls” and others on the dangerous side effects of some medications in this respect. People with poor eyesight and dementia are also more prone to falls, especially when they are moved from home, or a nursing home, to hospital. Ninety percent of hip fractures occur in people over fifty and eighty percent of them are women. A European project has developed a wearable, wireless device equipped with motion sensors to monitor people who are susceptible to falls. It can also help people decrease their risk of a fall. [...]

Telehealth Monitor Could Reduce Hospital Visits and Save Money

We’ve written about telehealth (also known as telemedicine) before, both in the context of providing better care in rural areas and as a part of a managed care program. There is a wide range of emerging telehealth applications. Some systems focus on helping physicians make better diagnoses by enabling them to discuss situations and clinical test results, such as X-Rays or CAT scans, with one or more subject matter experts. A slight extension would allow patients to visit local clinics, be connected to monitoring equipment, and discuss the situation with their physician over audio/video links. A Japanese research team is developing a portable vital signs monitor that can be comfortably worn 24 hours a day and that connects through the Internet to a remote monitoring service. [...]

The Best Ways to Save Money On Prescription Medicine

Earlier this year we described how a Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Plan might save you money. Today we’re going to look at some tried and true ways of reducing the amount you pay for prescription drugs. We found hundreds of Internet sites listing foreign drug stores, most of them of doubtful trustworthiness, and dozens of “Top 10″ lists, most of them listing the same ideas. We’ve consolidated the ideas down into a short list. We’ll describe each idea and then provide you with a checklist of the five most important things you can do to save money without taking risks. [...]

How To Spot Pharmacy Errors

A third of the pills in a container of medicine I received from my local pharmacy were a different color and size than than the other ones. Being a nurse, I checked the pills using Epocrates. Sure enough, it was the wrong medication and might have interacted with another one I was taking. Making sure that you were dispensed the correct medication may save your life. You should also consider using a medication manager and electronic alarm, as featured on our Gadgets page. [...]

Medication Side Effects that Pose Dangers for Seniors

A number of studies have identified medications that pose particular risks to seniors. The ones that are particularly dangerous have side effects that include: blurred vision, dizziness, drowsiness and memory impairment. The first three side effects increase the risk of falling. [...]

"Steam Radio" is Alive and Well

When we were kids we used to rush home from school and sit in front of the radio to hear the latest episode of our favorite series. Other than music, news and sports and a few notable entertainment programs, such as “A Prairie Home Companion”, television practically wiped out the educational and entertainment side of radio in the USA. When Apple introduced the iPod music player they setup an online service called iTunes, which we’ve talked about in a previous article. One of the best things about the iTunes is store is that there are thousands of short “programs”, called Podcasts, most of which are free. [...]

Audrey Soldiers On

Not everyone can have an Audrey [Internet appliance] and many seniors shy away from the complexities of a full PC. So, I started looking around for alternatives. Rather than go over these devices and techniques here we’ve created a page in the Resources area to cover Computing for Seniors. [...]

Green Pets

Nowadays it’s accepted that flowers and pot plants help patients recover. Potted plants are especially beneficial as they help to clean up the air. The verdict’s out on whether plants have any kind of “feelings’, but we definitely like and care for our new green “pets”. We also like the taste of fresh, home grown produce, but don’t tell the plants that. Why not give it a try? [...]

Is Bottled Water Worth the Cost?

Americans are drinking more bottled water every year, but is it worth the price? Clean water is essential to our health. Everybody knows that dehydration can kill, but drinking water has many more health benefits. It increases metabolism and regulates appetite, helping us to maintain a healthy weight. It is now thought that drinking [...]

Gadget Roundup

One of the things we’re most conscious of as we age is that it becomes harder to do everyday things, ranging from struggling to read small print in low lighting to being unable to bend down and reach that thing that fell off the dresser and rolled under the bed. There is a huge range of low to high technology gadgets to help us out. [...]

President Obama signed the second part (reconciliation) of the health care reform bill on March 30, 2010. That's great, but the provisions that will cover the uninsured haven't clicked in yet.

Our elected officials started work on the proposed health insurance reform bill on July 30, 2009. Harvard researchers estimate that 122 Americans die every day as a result of not having health insurance.

So, the estimated number of uninsured Americans who have died while the politicians in the Senate and Congress played politics and delayed new benefits for the sake of the health care insurers is

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