In an office building of Helsinki, Finland, a social worker is meeting six elderly people for lunch-via tablets propped on their kitchen tables. While many countries with growing elderly populations are building new care homes, Finland is looking after people in their own homes-by means of technology.
The most common reason for a home visit by a social worker is to check that Grandma is taking her medicine. A pill-dispensing (配药的) robot in her home can do that. Each holds a two-week supply of multiple drugs, gives a reminder when it is time to take them and dispenses the right combination. For one in five people who try them the robots don't work, usually because Grandma is reluctant to take lots of pills. But for the rest, they have cut medication-related visits from 30 to just four a month.
The idea of old folk living alone perhaps worries Finnish people less than many others; Finns pride themselves on their rugged self-reliance. A welcome pack for foreign journalists includes a book of cartoons depicting “Finnish nightmares”, such as having to say “hello" to a neighbour. Social isolation, however, is a big problem for the elderly because it leads to faster cognitive and physical decline. To deal with that, Helsinki runs virtual get-togethers for its homebound elderly. These should be regarded as extras, though. A degree of personal interaction, not just the virtual kind, is surely necessary even for Finns.
The biggest challenge for both humans and devices is to spot problems early. Local tech companies, including MariCare Oy and Benete, have developed systems to gather data on things like how often a person visits the bathroom or opens the fridge. Care workers use such data to prioritise whom to visit and what to check for. Not opening the fridge as often, for example, is a hint that memory problems may be getting worse.
The biggest gain from technology may be that it makes it easier to keep old people fit enough to remain in their own homes. This is much cheaper, and usually nicer, too.
【小题1】How does Finland look after its elderly?| A．By building more new care homes. |
| B．By offering them remote-care services. |
| C．By increasing the population of social workers. |
| D．By creating more senior-accessible public areas. |
| A．It comforts the elderly reluctant to take pills |
| B．It reminds nurses to restore an elderly's drug supply. |
| C．It ensures the doctors give the right combination of pills. |
| D．It saves social workers the trouble of frequent home visits |
| A．Make some face-to-face contact. |
| B．Stick to their tradition of self-reliance. |
| C．Run as many virtual get-togethers as possible. |
| D．Keep a safe social distance with their neighbours. |
| A．Freeing the homebound elderly from restrictions. |
| B．Helping the elderly suffer less from memory loss. |
| C．Identifying potential health problems of the elderly. |
| D．Developing household systems suitable for the elderly. |
