Monday, December 14, 2015

A healthy dose of technology provides peace of mind

By no means am I a technology expert. In fact, I’m often kiddingly ridiculed at the office for my lack of expertise. Recently, when I had an issue with an Excel spreadsheet, I contacted one of my sons to guide me through the problem.

I remember spending a fortune for an IBM computer several years ago. It came with two floppy discs and I proudly upgraded to an Amber monitor. It was the beginning of a trend.
Every time I have upgraded hardware or installed new software, no matter how easy the experts claimed it was to install, I’ve had issues. That being said, I still learned to embrace technology early in my career.

New technology is expensive, but as it rapidly evolves the price goes down. A few decades ago you could pay upwards of $100 for a desktop calculator. Today, they fit in your shirt pocket, and if you don’t want to pay a few dollars, your local insurance guy probably gives them away.

Just last week I wrote about cell phones and the add-on taxes that seem to keep creeping up. Today, I want to make my clients and readers aware of a relatively new technology that could be of great benefit.

As a financial advisor, many of my clients are in or near retirement. Not surprisingly, with today’s healthcare advances, quite a few of them are caring for an elderly parent. And believe me, shouldering both the financial and health care responsibilities of an elderly loved one is no easy task.
Fortunately, recent technological advances have made it much easier to keep track of your elderly loved ones. I’m not talking about something as “outdated” as putting an online camera on grandma’s fireplace mantel. It’s far more sophisticated than that.

You may or may not have heard of the Internet of Things (IoT), but you probably have noticed that a large segment of our population is wearing rubber wristbands to keep track of their steps every day.
In fact, many people compete against one another and actually have the daily results posted online for all the competitors to review. Some of these wristbands not only count steps, but also have emergency features that are activated in the event of a fall and are programmed to contact loved ones or even call for an ambulance.

In the not too distant future, I believe there will be a lot of wearable technology that will help you care for and monitor your loved ones without invading their personal space. Technology already exists to monitor pulse rate and blood pressure. GPS tracking systems are available to help in case a loved one becomes disoriented. And experts estimate that the IoT will consist of almost 50 billion interconnected objects by 2020.

I think it’s reasonable to assume that, as the technology improves, prices will ultimately decrease. Initial prices, that is. As with home alarms and cell phones you’ll need to factor in monthly fees to determine the actual overall cost.

Healthcare planning is an integral part of financial planning. Helping aging loved ones with their healthcare issues is a huge responsibility, but new — and affordable — technology coming onto the market can help provide peace of mind; For your elderly loved ones and for you

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