Taking care of the elderly in Silicon Valley – a personal story | Hacker News Reader

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

venturebeat.com

123 pointsceceshao155 comments

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...

There are services in NYC where you can volunteer to simply talk to lonely elderly (or play card games or some other activity) in your neighborhood. I can't provide a link right unfortunately. You have to sign up, they'll verify you and then they'll connect to some lonely elderly in your area. Loneliness and isolation is understated.

My wife and I did this as our first date when we first started dating; we're both Christian if you're wondering why someone would do this on a first date. Unexpectedly, the lady we were to visit literally lived her last hour before she passed away before our eyes. We listened and comforted her husband for the next hour or so. We also listened to the CNA make the difficult calls to her children, some of which were out of state. It was a somber and humbling experience. Our seniors need love just as much as we do.

Wow that's a pretty intense experience for a first date.

and probably the reason they are married.

we're both Christian if you're wondering why someone would do this on a first date

What does both of you identifying as christian have to do with anything? Are non-christians less likely to do empathetic things?

It's certainly worth knowing that Christianity, like most religious beliefs or philosophies, does not have a monopoly on empathy, kindness, or service, nor is its profession a guarantee that someone makes those things a studied part of their practice.

But the commentor's claims seem limited to Christianity as a motivator for their behavior, which is hardly objectionable and a very different thing from your challenge-reading of their words.

Well, according to some statistics yes...

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/oct/30/religious-p...

but saying christians visit the elderly for a first date does not necessarily imply nobody but christians are generous in any way.

Well, according to some statistics yes...

And there it is.

While I'm sure a study conducted by the "Institute on Faith & Giving" and published by a Moonie paper is objective it misses quite a bit by assuming that donating to charity is the only measure of empathy or generosity.

https://www.philanthropy.com/article/America-s-Generosity-Di...

Take a look a the states that rank towards the bottom of the list (mostly New England) and those that rank at the top (e.g. Alabama). Or take a look at how empathy is framed as a McCain vs Obama thing. What's missing from that sort of narrative is that Obama pushed government welfare where McCain fought it, that Massachusetts will have far more mature safety nets than Alabama. Supporting universal access to health care is no less empathetic than donating to a religious charity, the only difference is in who you trust to dole out the resources.

Another difference would be that the kind of redistribution Obama favors is compelled for one side of the equation while charity is more or less voluntary depending upon your vision of what the divine requires.

Another difference would be that the kind of redistribution Obama favors is compelled for one side of the equation

Sure, and there are plenty of welfare programs that predate Obama. Welfare programs that were, in large part, created by elected officials.

As others have pointed out, I mainly mentioned our faith as the reason that drives us to serve the greater community such as the seniors at the hospice care center we visited; I almost didn't but i thought it was worthwhile given it's probably an uncommon first date.

I have and love many family members and friends who aren't Christian who of course have done similarly empathetic things out of the goodness of their heart; I'm sure we can all name such people in our lives - we should share their stories too.

I really appreciate the author and in light of this story, all the health care employees who work tirelessly to support and care for the ailing and downtrodden. This is what "loving your neighbor as you would love yourself" means.

This sounds perfect - if you can dig up the link, that would be great!

> if we're investing our time/money/energy in the right places

Considering that the biggest technology companies are advertisers, data-collectors and shopping oriented, my initial feeling is "absolutely not".

But it's also hard to get people engaged to trying to help the elderly, until they see the struggle in front of them. Which I'm sure many don't.

I used to work as a elderly-care assistant in Sweden, and while helping with medicin, cleaning and other things are important, most of the people just want to have some company once in a while, and was incredibly grateful for being able to have a honest conversation with a non-doctor.

So my recommendation would be to reach out to elderly-care homes in NYC, and ask them if they need help with basic tasks on weekends/evenings. With that, you'll get time to interact with them as well (although, maybe all this works differently in the US, I have no idea).

I apologize for offering totally unsolicited commentary, especially if it's unhelpful, but your grandmother's condition sounds similar to what my grandmother suffered from. We thought she had Alzheimers and Parkinsons, but a postmortem analysis by the folks at UC Davis showed that she had dementia with lewy bodies [0], which shares symptoms with both of those diseases but is treated somewhat differently. I mention it only because the treatment for some of her symptoms ended up making things worse and are contraindicated for DLB patients.

I'm sorry for what your family is going through. It took a profound toll on our family, too.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dementia_with_Lewy_bodies

You have a good heart - I hope you keep at it, even if it means just keeping the elderly company or helping with simple tasks; they and the senior center staff will certainly appreciate it.

Sam Gerstenzang (formerly of a16z) runs Umbrella [1]. You should check it out.

[1] https://www.askumbrella.com/

I used to volunteer at a senior community center in NYC and I've tried to do it in a few other locations. If you offer to help in a non-specific way, you likely won't hear back. There may also be liability issues they want to avoid, depending on the manner in which you'd be helping. I got replies when I offered to tutor people.

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.

don't you mean "reverted to"?

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.

I spent a good ten minutes recently trying to use a phone to make a phone call. In the end, I went onto google play and searched for "dialer" and installed one and when it finished installing, the button marked "install" turns to "run" (or some such - open maybe) and got the newly installed dialer program to start, and then I could make a phone call.

I'm sure there was at least one dialer program installed already. No idea how to find it. There is a lot to be said for a simple phone that puts making phone calls front and centre, with permanent buttons with numbers on them.

I use an iPad with my mother who has severe dementia. I screwed the iPad down to the table and set FaceTime to automatically answer. This helps a bit so that I can call out to her. I also have a Nest cam in her room so I can see her that way as well.

It's a terrible existence that my mother is living.

> [I] set FaceTime to automatically answer.

Huh, I didn’t realize this was an option, that’s very useful for situations like this. Thanks for the tip!

I actually got my 80yr old mother a Google Home mini for $25 off ebay. She can easily ask it to play her favorite music, weather info, call the local pharmacy and more. She loves it.

I've found that change in general is the problem. My grandma was able to use her old tube radio no problem but when it broke she never used the newer stereo, even though she only had to push one button.

30 years later same issue with my mom, she can navigate very complex tasks no problem but has trouble with anything new, even if it's much "easier" to use.

The trick would be to have new tech perfectly emulate whatever the old generation grew up with.

I wonder at what age that typically (if there is a typical experience) happens?

My mother is in her mid 70s and very far from a techie or tech-interested (worked in textiles/fashion, never used a computer before the current century & then first only for making free international calls via Skype as was setup by us) & slowly but surely adapted to some small variety of new tech especially after retirement when she had more time on her hand.

She does nothing fancy with it but is e.g. using a modern android phone to make video calls & send messages via whatsapp, play casual games, etc.

I think your parenthetic comment hints at the truth. There isn't a typical age, rather a wide age band where individuals may experience different declines.

With dementia, the descent can seem very rapid. One year, they are functioning well and adapting, but suddenly you realize they are in deep trouble. For a while, their adaptive energy may be devoted to covering up deficiencies. So, when this coping mechanism fails, the struggle suddenly emerges for all to see.

But, some people may fit the description of "unable to learn new things" long before that sort of dementia is relevant. They may be depressed, or may have a prideful personality which avoids the unknown because any trial and error learning is embarrassing. Frustratingly, it can also be hard to get elders in this category to go anywhere near a doctor for a better evaluation. And without a better understanding of what is going on, it can be difficult to identify an appropriate intervention or care approach.

Agreed. My dad was a physics professor and researcher who started his career in silicon valley in the 60s. You'd think he'd be interested in computer stuff but he lost his interest or maybe, like you're saying, finds trial and error embarrassing.

My mom never went to college but does a lot better with at least basic stuff like email. Once she was super motivated to find a gift for my kids and figured out how to buy it on ebay, something I didn't think she'd be able to do so a lot of it is willingness and motivation.

While it is true old people slow down, I think interest in learning is the bigger factor. I know old people who enjoy new toys and get them all the time, even though they struggle [with something younger people find easy) they enjoy the learning and figure it out. I know old people who have no interest in learning anything new in general - yet when presented with something new related to their hobbies can figure it out quickly).

I agree with the comment about interest. Hell, my dad just turned 80 and he has far more interest in playing with Android on his phone, tweaking things on his Tesla, and so on. But he never worked in tech, although of course he used computers as part of his office job.

As someone who works in tech, I just want my personal tech to work, and I have much more limited free time. But he could have all the free time in the world; if he wasn't interested in learning new things, he'd have far less tech than I do.

> The trick would be to have new tech perfectly emulate whatever the old generation grew up with.

Sounds like skeuomorphism. Wait for the next generation of designers to bring it back.

True, personally I hated that phase of GUI design but to be honest I don't find the current flat, single-purpose stuff very satisfying either. If I'm honest, I still prefer Windows 3.1/early Mac interface so I'm probably no different from my parents and grandparents.

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.

I'm a Filipino and I can say we do take care of our elderly. Culture and religion train us to do so.

Often times taking them in to our home. But it's not all colorful. The Philippines is a third-world country and such there would be conflict in financial matters but still, Filipinos can take a lot of beating and hardships before giving up.

I see a lot of Americans retire here with their Filipino wives. Their dollars are giving them a good buck i.e. nice houses, etc.

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.

A short list:

1. fonts too small

2. buttons that do different things depending on how long the button is held down

3. chording - needing to hold down more than one button simultaneously to do something

4. blink speed - slow blink means one thing, fast blink means another. Is that LED blinking "slow" or "fast"?

5. labeling buttons with icons that have no deducible meaning

6. modes

7. having to do the next step within a certain number of seconds or it fails and you have to start all over again

Reading each one of these made me silently scream inside. I'm not elderly yet (on the outside, I suppose), but each one of these things is poor UX and makes me absolutely livid.

They're incredibly common. I can't get the radio in my car out of certain modes I accidentally get into. It doesn't even have an off button. I essentially have to wait several minutes until it times out.

Many devices I have, once I lose the manual, are simply impossible to use because of the points listed above. My dashcam is simply impossible to use because of this, even though it has a bitmapped display. All it needs is power, menu, up, down, select and with a bitmapped display you can do anything with that. But noooo...

>> 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.

How is it even possible for him to cover that?

Could be that his mom had some money saved up or had some pension $ that could be put towards it. Not sure if insurance would help cover housing costs?

yeah its just the kind of thing to wipe out a lifetime of saving

"Lead journalist" at VentureBeat must be more lucrative than I thought.

Is this housing cost a Silicon Valley thing? Like rents are completely insane, so elder housing is also completely insane?

It's not like I live in a cheap city, either. Boston is pretty pricey, but wow.

Assisted living, in general, is phenomenally expensive. It sounds like the mother lived in Sacramento, but they're renting out her house, so I'm sure that's a welcome revenue stream.

I suspect it's a labor thing as much as anything else. My father lived out his life at home, so I didn't have to deal with assisted living. However, the IRS is crystal clear that domestic employees are in fact employees subject to all the things like overtime and UI. California has even more generous overtime rules, but even just the base pay gets expensive. $20 * 24 * 7 = $3,360 in base pay per week. Using an agency simplifies things but is usually a bit more expensive.

From personal experience, I can tell you that $6K/month is not exclusively a Silicon-Valley phenomenon.

Basically you cover it with whatever SS, pension, savings, and other assets they have. When those don't cover it, you make compromises in quality of care, your finances, and your family's life.

This is actually one of the biggest reasons that socialized medicine is going to be a requirement rather than a nice to have.

Literally the cost of labor is just too high for this to not be part of a social safety net.

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.

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.

Or perhaps allowed compassionate euthanasia in severe cases.

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com