from Hacker News

Taking care of the elderly in Silicon Valley – a personal story

by ceceshao1 on 5/6/19, 12:54 PM with 55 comments

• by ceceshao1 on 5/6/19, 12:58 PM

  Was a bit surprised to see this piece from VentureBeat (guess that's why they called it OffBeat). My family has been taking care of my grandmother who has Alzheimers and Parkinsons and it's taken a tremendous toll on everyone, especially my father who is the main caretaker.

  As someone in tech, it's stories and experiences like this that make me wonder if we're working towards something that will help those in need or if we're investing our time/money/energy in the right places. After all, everyone is going to die so I'm wondering what we can do to alleviate some of the pressure + pain from this part of life.

  In this vein, if you know of opportunities to help the elderly in NYC, please let me know. I'm open and willing to spend my evenings and full weekends helping out however I can. Have reached out to a few senior centers, but most have not responded, unfortunately...

• by sjg007 on 5/6/19, 5:50 PM

  This is why mixed use multi generational housing should be developed. You get a community essentially where people can look after each other. Obviously memory care and assisted living is a different ball game but you can still have those facilities in the community as well.

• by pnutjam on 5/6/19, 2:01 PM

  My Mother-in-law could never figure out how to use a touchscreen phone. Getting her own phone line was very difficult and finding a good flip style phone is getting harder and harder.

  I found that many newer models of cordless home phones will bluetooth tether to a cellphone. This way we could keep her phone plugged in and charged and she could just use the cordless style phone she was already accustomed to.

• by yowlingcat on 5/7/19, 12:41 AM

  I was having a conversation about this with friends last weekend. Compared to Asia and Europe, it's really hard to grow elderly in America. America is an atomized, individualistic society, for better and worse. Aging related loneliness hits much harder here than elsewhere. It seems that in both the NYC metro area and SV metro area, it's not great to be elderly, and people don't treat the elderly very well. This is not the case in Asia where my parents are from, nor was it the case in the countries in Europe I visited. I guess there are the notable exceptions in America IE Florida, but I'm not sure if there are any other places where becoming elderly is remotely pleasant or not isolating (and I'm making huge assumptions about parts of Florida here).

  I don't know if there's an easy solution to this problem. It seems to be a very deep part of a trade-off made very early on in the development of America's cultural fabric. I'm not sure if (knock on wood that I ever get there) I'd want to retire in America. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if the grass is that much greener elsewhere.

• by ilamont on 5/6/19, 9:30 PM

  The AARP said in “2019 Tech Trends and the 50+” that 115 million Americans over 50 represent an enormous market for technology and that by the end of the next decade this group is projected to spend $84 billion on tech products.

  Yet major technology companies continue to make it difficult for seniors to do simple things, even though they think they're making things easier. The tech hipsters handling design for FAANG companies should follow around a group of 70-somethings for a week and try to see the world through their eyes ... and realize that a huge segment of the population is not being served.

• by wffurr on 5/6/19, 3:38 PM

  >> My mother’s housing costs are moving past $6,300 a month

  Holy shit. I can't imagine how the author can afford that plus take care of his family.

• by notyouravgdoge on 5/7/19, 4:18 AM

  I find it interesting that most of my company perks apply only to the employee, their spouse or domestic partner, and their children, but not to their parents or grandparents.

  Your "family" could be covered by a great health insurance plan through your employer, but you wouldn't get any financial assistance on the $6,300 a month that the author of the article is paying for his elderly mother.

• by msie on 5/6/19, 8:34 PM

  So many problems would be solved if we could only cure dementia. Just my observation having taken care of my mom and dad and hanging around a lot in hospitals.

  [Edit] Sorry my comment should have been placed in response to the one comment about what SV should really be investing in. Imagine if we had companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon trying to solve dementia rather than get more revenues through ads.

• by lgleason on 5/6/19, 7:09 PM

  My father lives in a small town in Tennessee where a lot of people have started to go to retire. A number of neighbors who have moved there in recent years have been from California trying to escape the high cost of living.