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The Driverless Revolution Series Part 4: Freedom at Last—How AVs Liberate the Elderly, Disabled, and Mobility-Constrained

By Futurist Thomas Frey

The Day Margaret Stopped Driving

Margaret is 76. She stopped driving last year after her doctor said her vision and reaction time weren’t safe anymore. She didn’t argue—she’d been feeling less confident behind the wheel for a while.

That decision made her a prisoner in her own home.

She lives in a nice house in suburban Phoenix. Her daughter lives 40 minutes away. Her doctor is 15 minutes away. The grocery store is 8 minutes away. Her church is 12 minutes away. Her friends from her book club are scattered across the metro area.

None of this is walkable. There’s no public transit. Uber costs $25-40 for a round trip to the grocery store, which is ridiculous for a 15-minute errand. She can’t ask her daughter to drive her everywhere—her daughter works full-time and has her own kids to worry about.

So Margaret sees her doctor less than she should. She misses church sometimes. She can’t attend book club anymore. She orders groceries online but it’s not the same as shopping herself. She’s lonely, isolated, and depressed.

This is the reality for millions of elderly Americans. About 25% of people over 65 don’t drive anymore. For people over 85, it’s closer to 50%. They lose independence precisely when they most need to maintain it.

But Margaret is 76 in 2025. If she were 76 in 2040, her life would be completely different. Because by then, she could summon an autonomous vehicle to take her anywhere, anytime, for a fraction of today’s ride-share costs.

She’d keep her independence into her 80s, maybe 90s. She’d stay connected to her community. She’d manage her own medical care. She’d remain active and engaged instead of isolated and declining.

This isn’t hypothetical. This is what autonomous vehicles will do for the elderly. And it’s one of the most unambiguously positive impacts of the technology.

Continue reading… “The Driverless Revolution Series Part 4: Freedom at Last—How AVs Liberate the Elderly, Disabled, and Mobility-Constrained”
Coronavirus, Healthcare, Housing, New Viewpoints, Science & Technology News

Getting old needs a new look

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The pandemic has exacerbated issues like social isolation in U.S. nursing homes and assisted-living facilities. But problems with the living situations of older Americans long predate the coronavirus.

Covid-19 has exposed the lethal vulnerabilities of nursing homes and assisted-living facilities. Can better design make aging safer?

In at least one way, the United States’s tragic response to the coronavirus hasn’t been an outlier: Just like in the rest of the world, the consequences of the pandemic were amplified inside living facilities for older adults.

As of August 13, at least 68,000 residents and workers in long-term care facilities in the U.S. have died from the coronavirus, according to New York Times research, a number that comprises more than 40% of the nation’s total. That percentage that’s been matched or exceeded by other countries across the globe. In Europe, half of all Covid-19 deaths happened in nursing homes and long-term care facilities, according to the World Health Organization. In Canada, which has been far more effective at containing the disease, 82 percent of the country’s deaths have been concentrated among these facilities.

The vulnerability of nursing homes was clear from the earliest stage of outbreak in the U.S., when the disease swept through the Life Care Center of Kirkland, Washington in February, claiming dozens of deaths. At Holyoke Soldiers’ Home in Massachusetts, at least 74 residents — a third of the facility’s population — died of Covid-19 in April. The summer resurgence of infections has found its way into care facilities in Texas, Florida, and Arizona, bringing the number of cases in nursing homes nationwide above its previous peak in May.

For the entire multibillion-dollar ecosystem of senior living in the U.S. — including the more than 15,000 nursing homes, nearly 29,000 residential care communities, and about the same number of assisted-living facilities — the pandemic is exposing a deadly dilemma at a challenging time. “We weren’t prepared for Covid,” says Dr. Robyn Stone, co-director of LeadingAge LTSS Center at University of Massachusetts Boston. “Nobody was, including the nursing homes.”

Continue reading… “Getting old needs a new look”

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