For 72-year-old Uncle Ni, there are colorful group activities in old age, stability and happiness in each other, but there is also loneliness and helplessness with few people to take care of him. After retiring, Uncle Ni and his wife of the same age chose to care for the elderly at home, because their only daughter works in Australia, and the old couple rarely see their daughter. He sighed helplessly: "As the old saying goes, raising children to prevent old age is difficult to achieve in modern society. "He is quite satisfied with his old age, at least he has relatives, friends and a wife. The only concern is that his physical condition is not ideal, he has diabetes and coronary heart disease, and his wife also has high blood pressure. The old couple can still take care of each other at present, and once the condition worsens or there is an emergency, they are simply powerless to deal with it.
Also facing the problem of old-age care is 74-year-old Aunt Su, because her wife died two years ago, and she did not want to live with her children or go to a nursing home, she chose to care for the elderly at home alone. Aunt Su thinks that her current physical condition is quite healthy and she can take care of herself, but her blood lipids are a little high and she needs to seek medical attention frequently. But she is also worried: "When people are old, there are many uncertainties, and they are afraid of sudden illnesses or falls and injuries."
As children, they are also worried about their parents' pension. Mr. Chen, 44, works hard in Beijing on his own, while his parents, who are in their 70s, stay in their hometown in the countryside to retire. The father has cerebral infarction and impaired mobility, and the mother also has diabetes. He often checks the cameras in his home to see how well his parents are doing and what they're doing. What he is most worried about is that his parents are getting older day by day, and if there is an abnormality in his body, he can be treated as soon as possible.
The problem of pension in today's era has also changed the concept of pension for many young people. 32-year-old Mr. Liu has a different plan for his future old life, he believes that the elderly can not rely on children, choose a new community pension model, coupled with advanced intelligent elderly care equipment in the room, maybe there will be an independent and safe old age.
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How to retire in retirement? Independent living and staying at home are the mainstream
The Economic Observer recently launched a questionnaire on the "Research Report on Home Health Care for the Elderly", and collected a total of 248 valid samples (N=248) from 15 provinces and cities across the country. Among them, a survey of the elderly group aged 65~75 showed that 75.8% of them chose to live alone or with their partners, and 24.2% chose to live with their children. For the way of elderly care, 87.9% chose to care for the elderly at home, 6.37% chose the community care method, 5.1% chose nursing homes/care centers, and 0.64% chose other methods. In the survey of 18~46 years old, 57.83% of the children chose to live with their parents, and 42.17% of the young people chose not to live with their parents.
According to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, China will enter the stage of "moderate aging" during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, when the elderly population will exceed the 300 million mark. It is estimated that by 2035, the total elderly population will increase to about 420 million, accounting for more than 30%, entering the stage of severe aging.
According to the "China Aging Research Report 2022", the aging trend of Chinese population presents five characteristics: the elderly population is huge, the aging rate is fast, the problems of aging and empty nesting are becoming increasingly prominent, the dependency ratio of the elderly has increased significantly, the burden of old-age care has increased, and the old age before getting rich.
According to the results of the seventh national population census in 2020, the elderly living alone accounted for 21.38% of the "households with elderly people". There is a clear upward trend compared with previous years.
At a press conference, the National Health Commission introduced that the elderly in mainland China present a "9073" pattern. The deputy director of the Beijing Hospital, the National Geriatrics Center and the Beijing Institute of Geriatrics of the National Health Commission said that the "9073" pattern is that about 90% of the elderly are aged at home, about 7% of the elderly rely on community support for the elderly, and 3% of the elderly live in institutions for the elderly.
What are the elderly most worried about? Health problems
According to the "Research Report on Home Health Care for the Elderly", when choosing a pension method, the most important facility for the elderly is "medical care facilities", accounting for 55.17%; This was followed by "smart home devices", accounting for 31.03%, social activities accounting for 10.34%, and emergency rescue accounting for 3.45%. At present, although the proportion of smart home equipment assisted pension is relatively low, it is showing a rapid growth trend, and the acceptance of the elderly group is rising.
According to the survey results of "the most important services for the elderly", medical and health services are most needed by the surveyed population, accounting for 74.1%. As a child's main concern, 85.37% of the children are concerned about whether their parents can enjoy the necessary medical and health services.
When a person has to face the retirement life head-on, health issues become the most concerned topic. Sun Liang, deputy director of the Beijing Institute of Geriatrics, National Geriatrics Center of Beijing Hospital and National Health Commission, said that with the development of economy and society, especially the rapid development of the aging population in the mainland, the demand for health in the mainland has grown rapidly. 75% of older people have at least one chronic disease. People pay more attention to the prevention of diseases, the improvement of individual functions, the good state of health, and the extension of healthy life expectancy. Behind the aging of the population, it is accompanied by diseases and unexpected situations.
As they age, older people face many health risks. Gao Yanan, director of the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at Beijing Geriatric Hospital, said that one type of health risk is chronic diseases, such as diabetes and hypertension. The second category is cognitive decline, such as Alzheimer's disease. The third group is prone to falls and fractures. With the decline of physical function, the strength of the elderly is weakened, and they are especially prone to falls, causing serious events such as fractures. The fourth category is mental health problems, such as loneliness, depression, etc. Among them, accidents such as falls, especially for the elderly who live alone, will be more harmful, and if not dealt with in time, the consequences are unimaginable.
What is your health concern? Chronic illness and falls
According to the "Survey Report on Home Health Care for the Elderly", among the elderly respondents, 31.21% of the respondents said that they had been injured due to falls, 28.57% of the respondents were injured for a week due to falls, 24.49% of the respondents were injured for more than a month due to falls, and 46.94% of the respondents recuperated for more than 3 months due to falls. Among the young respondents, 84.34% of the respondents were most worried about their parents' health problems, followed by falls (79.52%), physical activity (63.86%), and mental health problems (51.81%).
In 2016, the National Assessment Report on China's Aging and Health pointed out that falls have become one of the leading causes of disability, disability and death among the elderly. 47% of uninjured elderly people who fell were unable to stand up without assistance, and lying down for more than 1 hour after the fall may lead to delayed treatment.
"The risk of falls increases with age, and data shows that one in three people over the age of 65 will fall, and more than 50% of people over the age of 80 will fall." Gao Yanan said that falls can cause fractures or ligament injuries, such as hip fractures, shoulder fractures, wrist fractures, knee fractures, brain injuries, soft tissue injuries, ligament strains, etc. The most serious situation is hip fracture or cerebral hemorrhage, data show that if the elderly have a hip fracture after a fall, the mortality rate within 6 months can reach 20%~25%, 50% will lose mobility, and only about 30% can recover to the mobility before the fall. These injuries caused by falls can reduce the mobility of the elderly and even lead to bed rest, which not only increases the cost of care, but also causes a series of complications for the elderly, seriously affecting the quality of life.
So, what are the causes of falls? Gao Yanan introduced that the reasons are generally divided into two aspects: internal factors and external factors. Internal factors, such as the decline of central control, reflexes, balance and coordination as the elderly age, are prone to falls. External factors, such as the spatial layout of the home environment, dim lighting, slippery floors, obstacles, etc. Among them, the risk of falls is relatively high among the elderly who live alone.
How to retire healthily? Enhance physical fitness and use the necessary smart equipment
According to the "Survey Report on Home Health Care for the Elderly", the most effective measures for coping with falls are considered by participants to be physical exercise, accounting for 86.62%. This is followed by smart home health care systems, accounting for 42.04%, as well as the use of assistive devices accounting for 36.31%, and finally regular eye checks accounting for 28.66%. It can be seen that with the development of science and technology, the use of smart home health care systems to cope with falls has become a major choice for the elderly to actively exercise.
To deal with the injuries caused by falls and improve the safety of the elderly, experts also give advice. Li Lizhuo, chief physician of the emergency department of Xuanwu Hospital of Capital Medical University, introduced that in the subjective aspect, the first is to have the awareness of preventing dangers, plan in advance when carrying out an activity, do what you can, and consciously avoid possible risks; The second is to have a sense of exercise and enhance one's own physique. The third is to maintain a peaceful mind, and a healthy mind also plays a very important role in preventing falls. Objectively, the living environment can be reasonably transformed. There are also smart home assistive devices to monitor health.
Li Lizhuo affirmed the positive role of smart home assistive devices in dealing with accidents such as falls. Li Lizhuo introduced that the use of smart home health monitoring equipment originated from the monitoring of chronic diseases, such as the monitoring of blood sugar, blood pressure, heart rate, etc., and later applied to prevent the elderly with dementia and monitor the physical posture of the elderly. Some monitoring devices will be connected to the alarm system, which is convenient for early rescue of the elderly in condition. On the one hand, the smart home health monitoring equipment partially solves the problem that the elderly cannot find disease signals in time due to the decline in physical sensitivity; On the other hand, it also meets the needs of some elderly people for independent space, realizes the intimate protection of home life, and also increases security. Therefore, smart home equipment, especially the current AI intelligent assisted health care equipment, can play a good auxiliary role in home health care life.
The most popular feature of assistive devices? Call for emergency help
According to the survey of the elderly population in the "Research Report on Home Health Care for the Elderly", 82.8% of people believe that it is necessary to install anti-fall facilities at home, and 73.25% of the respondents are willing to use smart home devices to detect sudden risks or falls. However, only 38.13% of the people know about smart home health devices. 77.4% of the respondents believe that in an emergency, automatic contact for medical assistance is the most important function of smart home health devices. Among the young people, 91.67% of the respondents believe that some fall prevention aids need to be installed at home.
When it comes to which smart health home health care monitoring devices are of great help to respondents, the demand rate of emergency call system is the highest, reaching 83.13%, followed by health data monitoring accounting for 75.9%, followed by fall and fall detector accounting for 71.08%, and some respondents are concerned about anti-wandering locators accounting for 53.01% and intelligent drug management systems accounting for 59.04%.
During the 13th Five-Year Plan period, the mainland launched the national key R&D program "Proactive Health and Aging Technology Response", which is the first "milestone" event to start a research project on aging health at the national level. Sun Liang introduced that the project highlights "strategic forward, gateway forward", focusing on key issues such as health risk factor control and elderly health services. Emphasizing the integration of new generation information technologies such as mobile Internet, big data, wearables, and cloud computing, with the dynamic identification of health imbalance, health risk assessment and health self-management as the main direction, focusing on breaking through the difficulties and bottlenecks such as quantitative stratification of human health status, continuous dynamic collection of health information, integrated analysis of health big data, and personalized fitness technology.
Health assistive devices are of great significance for improving the quality of life of the elderly and promoting the development of healthy elderly care. Sun Liang said that with the development of science and technology, health aids have gradually entered the elderly population and become an important tool for healthy elderly care.
As a leader in the development of smart home care devices, Huawei's whole-home intelligence is promoting the in-depth integration of intelligence and ageing. Huawei's AI-assisted health care sensor can detect whether a fall has occurred in the current space, intelligently identify different fall postures (such as rapid and slow falls), and report the alarm to the guardian in a timely manner by phone, SMS, WeChat service account, and APP. After receiving the information, the guardian can take timely assistance to the elderly, so as to avoid secondary harm to the elderly caused by delayed treatment.
The fall assist detection function can detect whether the user has fallen in real time, and intelligently identify different falling postures (such as rolling and falling, fast/slow fall on the side of the bed). After detecting that the elderly have fallen from the bed, they can report the alarm in time and notify the designated contact person through phone call, text message, WeChat, etc. Intelligent night detection can detect the user's action of getting up and getting out of bed, and actively turn on the night light to prevent tripping in the dark, etc.
Many elderly people will mind that their children will install cameras at home, thinking that it will invade their privacy. For example, Huawei's AI-assisted health care sensor uses millimeter-wave technology for intelligent detection, and only uses human body point data to process, and does not have imaging capabilities. The AI algorithm is run locally to ensure that the data "does not come out", and the encrypted identity verification mechanism achieves a high degree of privacy protection.
Science and technology empowerment will help build an integrated health service system led by active health technology, improve health security capacity and autonomy, and develop scientific and technological pension service standards and evaluation systems suitable for the national conditions of the mainland, promote the construction of an aging service system integrating pension, rehabilitation, nursing and medical care, and build a technical product support system for risk factor control, behavioral intervention, disease management and health services in the whole life process of continuous services, so as to provide scientific and technological support for actively responding to the aging of the population.
Key conclusions:
Conclusion 1: 74.1% of the elderly believe that medical and health services are essential for their retirement life
Most of the elderly in mainland China choose to live independently and care for the elderly at home, and with the increase of age, physical functions will face multiple tests, and necessary medical and health services are essential to ensure the quality of life of the elderly and increase healthy life expectancy.
Conclusion 2: More than one-third of the elderly have been injured by falls, and falls have become the biggest safety hazard for the elderly living alone
Among the elderly respondents, 31.21% of the respondents said that they had been injured due to a fall. Among them, 46.94% of the respondents recuperated for 3 months or more due to falls.
Conclusion 3: The most important services and facilities for the elderly population are healthcare facilities, followed by smart home devices
When choosing a way to care for the elderly, the most important services and facilities for the elderly are "medical care facilities", accounting for 55.17%; followed by "smart home equipment", accounting for 31.03%. Smart home devices for the elderly are showing a rapid growth trend, and their acceptance among the elderly is rising.
Conclusion 4: 81.80% of people believe that it is necessary to install fall detection equipment at home
In the elderly population, chronic diseases and falls are the two health problems that the elderly are most concerned about, and in the mode of independent living and home care for the elderly, the necessary intelligent health care equipment can play a very important auxiliary role in ensuring the health of the elderly.
Conclusion 5: Ninety percent of young people believe that the emergency call and rescue function in intelligent assistance devices is the most important.
Sudden illness and falls are important causes of major health events in the elderly, and the emergency call system can send out a distress signal in time when the elderly are unattended, so that the elderly can be rescued in the shortest possible time and reduce injuries.