Products, services help seniors meet need for mobility
Oct. 25, 20002

By MORGAN LYLE
Special to the Observer-Dispatch

“What a drag it is getting old,” sang Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones back in the 1960s.

Of course, he was in his early 20s when he sang those words, and many happy, healthy senior citizens probably disagree. (Jagger himself turns 60 next summer.)

Still, there’s no denying that growing older means slowing down. Once-simple movements such as getting out of a chair and walking to the kitchen can become significant challenges to the elderly.

Devices such as canes, walkers and grab bars eventually become part of most seniors’ homes.

A wide array of services, from licensed home health care to personal shopping services, is available to the elderly and infirm. New products – from a movable support pole made in Syracuse to a personal assistant robot being developed at the University of Pittsburgh — may someday be household items.

Being able to stay home is important to seniors such as Francesca Makuch of Utica.

“I want to be independent. I’ve always been independent,” Makuch said. “You can’t imagine how much I miss having a car.”

She uses a cane, exercises and socializes at the Resource Center for Independent Living, and looks a lot younger than her 79 years.

“If they fall once, they could end up in a nursing home,” said Nancy Hartmann, adult day services coordinator at the Resource Center, as she watched about two dozen seniors exercise on a recent morning. “Most of these folks live alone, too, so it’s important that they be as strong as possible.”

Exercise may be the most overlooked and yet most important tool for adapting to old age, said Dr. Neil K. Hall, a clinical professor of family medicine and geriatrics at Upstate Medical University in Syracuse and medical director at Loretto Utica Center and Heritage Health Care Center in Utica.

He recommends walking for 15 or 20 minutes three or four times a week.

“Aside from arthritis, what we see as the greatest contributor to the lack of mobility is the lack of exercise,” Hall said. “As you get older, it is far more important than it is for younger people.”

New York state certainly is getting older. The number of people older than age 60 will grow from 3.1 million today to 4.4 million in 2025 – an increase of 40 percent at a time when the state’s overall population will grow less than 10 percent, according to the state Office for the Aging.

Occupational therapist Michael Raite has assessed hundreds of homes with people coming home from extended hospital stays, and found many of them lacking the fixtures needed by people with diminished physical abilities.

Sensing an unmet need and a business opportunity, Raite is now president of a company that manufactures the Med-Pole, a 20-pound pole that reaches from floor to ceiling that is easily moved and can support 250 pounds.

A senior can station the $150 pole anywhere they need something to grab — next to a chair or toilet, for example — without having to install a permanent fixture.

Raite manufactures the Med-Pole in Syracuse, but said he’s considering moving the fabrication work to a building in Little Falls.

At the University of Pittsburgh, scientists are developing a device right out of TV and the movies: the nursebot, a robot that can fetch things, remind people to take their medicine and serve as a motorized walker that knows its way around a patient’s home.

Nicknamed “Pearl” for the color of its shell, a prototype nursebot is being tried at a Pittsburgh-area retirement community and is going over well, said Judy Matthews, an assistant professor of nursing at the university.

“Surprisingly, we haven’t had anyone say, ‘This is nuts,’” Matthews said. “They’re very interested in using technology to make their lives better.”