Summary
In this episode of the CareLab podcast, hosts Emilia Bourland and Brandy Archie sit down together for the first time in person to dive into the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in senior care. They explore how AI can be used for remote patient monitoring, companion robots, and hands-free voice agents like Alexa. The conversation balances excitement about the benefits of AI—greater safety, accessibility, and independence—with caution about privacy concerns, ethical implementation, and the irreplaceable need for human connection and physical touch. By weaving in real-life examples, case studies, and personal experiences, Emilia and Brandy provide a thoughtful look at where AI helps caregivers, where it falls short, and how it might evolve.
Key Questions Answered
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How can AI support remote patient monitoring in senior care?
AI-powered sensors can track routines, such as medication use or bathroom visits, and alert caregivers to potential issues like urinary tract infections or falls. This allows for earlier interventions without invasive cameras. -
What role can companion robots play for older adults?
Companion robots or AI-driven conversational agents may help reduce loneliness, especially for seniors living alone. However, hosts caution that while they can provide engagement, they cannot fully replace meaningful human relationships and physical touch. -
What are the ethical concerns about AI in dementia and memory care?
Introducing new technologies to individuals with cognitive impairments can be challenging. There’s a risk of confusion, over-reliance, or inadvertently replacing essential human care with machines instead of enhancing it. -
How do hands-free voice agents empower older adults?
Devices like Alexa and Siri can level the playing field for those with low vision, mobility challenges, or Parkinson’s disease by making it easier to access information, shop, or control smart home devices through voice commands. -
What are the biggest risks of relying on AI in caregiving?
Privacy breaches, over-dependence on technology, and a reduction in real human contact are major risks. The hosts stress that AI should complement—not replace—human caregivers, ensuring safety, dignity, and emotional well-being.
Transcript
Emilia Bourland
Welcome to CareLab, everybody! Welcome. Hey, look at us, we're together.
Brandy Archie
I know, I can actually see you in the flesh.
Emilia Bourland
I know, it's really weird, actually. I'm used to just looking forward at a camera and like, you know, having a conversation with a camera.
Brandy Archie
And also everybody not seeing like all of me and just like from here up is helpful.
Emilia Bourland
That's true, that's true. But full disclosure, I did say that no one was allowed to see my feet in this episode because I couldn't find the appropriate pair of shoes to go with this outfit. so, you know, so we're here.
Brandy Archie
So we're here. OK, so we're doing a solo episode for our first episode together. And rightfully so. We should talk about AI because who's not talking about AI?
Emilia Bourland
Who's not talking about AI? Also, I think AI is a pretty important part of both of our businesses, too. Yeah, that's true. So, yeah, totally. I mean, so let's let's talk about it. It's so we're talking about specifically AI in senior care and maybe what it's great for, maybe what we think it's not great for. Is this an amazing tool? Is this a game changer? Is it all hype? What's going on here?
Brandy Archie
And also, what can you take away from this today that'll maybe help you in your caregiver journey be a little bit more efficient, for lack of better word, or make some stuff a little easier? Totally. Absolutely. OK. We got four articles that are going to top off our topics and we'll see what you think about it. Okay, let's it. Let's roll. Okay, so the first one is remote patient monitoring. So AI can do a lot and one of the things that you could do and I have a couple of products that I really like that do this. The problem is family caregivers are like, okay, my person lives alone and I want to make sure they can stay alone but I also don't know that they're safe being there all the time and they're not for having ring cameras everywhere because privacy. So what can I do to help make sure that they can be safe? There are a bunch of AI based tools that are trying to do that in some certain ways. How do you feel about using AI to do some remote patient monitoring?
Emilia Bourland
So I have a feeling this is going to be my general response for a lot of these questions. I think that AI is actually an incredible tool to use for this kind of thing but it can't cut out the fact that a human has to be involved at some point. So it can make us way more efficient and good at noticing things. mean, and it can be there all the time when people can't, right? Like people are not always reliable. We get sick. We have to go to sleep. You know, we have to go to the bathroom. Like we have needs that must be met versus AI, which doesn't necessarily have those things and can be really, really incredible at understanding patterns and learning routines. And this is a really, really powerful and wonderful application of AI. At the end of the day, it still has to be tied into a human-based system that can respond to the things that the AI is recognizing.
Brandy Archie
I think this is not controversial. Between us, I agree with you. I'm to give a concrete example. One of the brands I like is called Nomo. So it's a bunch of motion sensors that you put throughout the space. And one really great safety feature is that every motion sensor also has a button. So you can push that button and get help. And so it learns you. And depending on where you put the sensors, the person who's the helper, let's say, the person who's looking at the information from outside of the home, can deduce some information without actually seeing the person. So for example, if I put a motion sensor on the drawer where mom keeps her medicines, and she's pretty routine, all of us are fairly routine, if the drawer gets opened every morning at eight, then I know that she's taking her medicines, even though I didn't like lock her meds or come and give them to her or something like that, right? The AI can give me that information, but it can't really tell me like what that means. I know what it means because we decided to put this motion sensor in that spot. Some other concrete examples would be like, you can put motion sensors or pressure sensors on the toilet seat so that you can tell when somebody's sat on it. And so if we're not sitting on it very often or we're going more often, the AI could tell you, hey, we're going more often at night. It might be a bladder issue. It might be a UTI. Now a human interacts and says, hey, let's get this checked out or let me go talk to mom and see if something's going on.
Emilia Bourland
Yeah, I think that's a really great example of using that constant kind of underlying monitoring system that's not invasive in the same way that a camera is in order to understand those patterns and routines and get that information. It reminds me there's another, there's a company that I love called Stackcare, that does something really similar. Have you ever heard of them?
Brandy Archie
have not heard of Stackcare.
Emilia Bourland
They're really awesome. You can actually find Stackcare through Loom Link also, but they also use motion sensors and they learn people's patterns and routines. And again, through understanding this data, we can start to understand if someone is, maybe they're having a UTI, maybe there is some kind of issue going on with their mobility. It can detect if they have fallen and will immediately call you know, the responsible party for this person. And that is such a wonderful, like kind of level of both peace of mind, but then also additional safety for older adults who are sort of right on that cusp of whether or not it is safe for them to live on their own anymore. And of course, like people, for the most part, they want to age in place. They want to stay independent. They want to be empowered. And so having these kinds of systems involved where we can take steps to intervene early versus just respond to things after they become an emergency, I think is a really, really valuable way that the AI is being used today. Yeah, that's a good one. Really good one.
Brandy Archie
Okay, one of the things that's been coming up a lot more often, especially for like memory care situations and assisted living are these companion robots. And so there's a variety of styles. I've seen some that are just like not an actual device, like just like a screen to talk to. There are some that are like huggable. There are some that are like, you know, just a voice, like you could call on the phone and have a conversation with your companion with the goal being that people, specifically seniors in some of these applications have a companion or somebody to talk to in the situation that they don't usually have that because we do know that loneliness is a huge issue in our society, especially as we get older. And so people have been trying to come up with solutions using AI to do that. There are a few brands. What are your thoughts?
Emilia Bourland
This is a little bit more controversial for me. I think it really depends on the particular application and the individual themselves as well. I think especially when we're talking about people who have cognitive impairments, memory issues, dementia, things like that, we have to be really cautious about how we're implementing AI around that as something that is interacting directly with that person. One, because this is a very vulnerable population and we just have to be extremely thoughtful about how we're implementing these kinds of technologies. The other thing, again, particularly about people with cognitive impairment, memory issues, dementia; If we're asking someone in that situation to be able to learn how to use something new, that's not really gonna work.
Brandy Archie
That's true.
Emilia Bourland
But I mean, to be a little bit more controversial, usually this is just by talking. And you don't have to learn a new thing. It's just like, instead of talking to you, I'm talking to this or talking to this, and you could do that. I agree with you. I think where it gets like a little bit more if there's a certain number that I have to call, or if we're worried about, you know, people picking up the phone and talking to people when they shouldn't be like, how are we kind of managing that situation? That's not me saying like, no, we should never ever do this. It's me saying we need to be really thoughtful and ethical and about how we are approaching the implementation of these technologies and not just be like, wow, this is so cool and assume that it's a panacea for everything.
The other point of this that makes it controversial to me, and again, you're right, loneliness is a huge problem in our culture, it's a really big problem for older adults as well. People get sick because they are lonely. People really are unwell because of that. So it's a real issue that we need to solve. But sometimes I think it feels really easy to say, well, I can just have this AI call and do the talking and do the work. And in reality, I wonder, are we sometimes trying to replace a real human connection, which is what's necessary with an AI connection.
And you know, maybe that's helpful, maybe that's not all bad, but it can't replace the human relationships that people really need. That's my opinion.
Brandy Archie
It can't replace it or you don't want it to replace it?
Emilia Bourland
I don't think it can fully replace it. And listen, jury's out. I could be wrong. But I think that we cannot replace the need for true human interaction. I'm not saying that talking on the phone is a bad thing. know, if I'm, if I, there are times when I'm like, you know what, I just need to call my dad. I just need to talk with my brother. I just need to talk with my best friend, right? And that is wonderful. But to have real human face-to-face contact and to have real human conversations, I think that that's not something that's that easy to replace. And the other part of that is, if we are relying on AI to be that primary contact, what are we missing by not having a person in the room who can really do observation related to that person's status?
Brandy Archie
But that person is not going to be able to remember every single thing that was said and look at the patterns of everything that was said and then make a decision about that. And so the challenge point, I... I'm playing devil's advocate here. I do think that human connection is really important, but the science part of human connection is really about like the hormones that are driven and like the way that your brain lights up because you're having a conversation, you're talking about something that's important or interesting to you. If you are not interested in my topic, but my AI friend will talk to me about Kansas City Chiefs all day every day and go way deep, I probably would get more excited about that conversation than trying to have that same conversation with you.
Emilia Bourland
Yeah. Absolutely, not arguing with that. But what I'm saying is I think that if we, I'm afraid that sometimes we think that it is again, like a panacea for these problems because AI is cool. I mean, I love it. We are both using it. We're both using it every day, both in our personal lives, in our businesses. LumaLink is built on top of a conversational AI that we use to direct people from one place to another, right? So like no doubt. I am pro-AI, but what I'm saying is it's really important, I think, to not use it as an excuse to not have the human connections and interaction that people, still think they need. Yeah.
Brandy Archie
I think it takes a serious amount of nuance that we as people who are busy and lazy don't like to do. You know I mean? Okay, so let's just say dad has 12 hours of a day to be filled. And he fills only 40 minutes of it with human interaction. If he fills another few hours with AI interaction and continues to have his human interaction, that might be all right. And especially if he increased because maybe the person he talks to most of the time is actually looking at what's happening in the AI or getting some alerts like, hey, we think that these things are happening, you might wanna talk to him about something without saying all his business, right? Then I might increase it. But if we just like, well, he's talked to his AI friend, he just takes 12 whole hours doing that, that would be problematic. I also draw the line for my own self and physical touch and images. I've talked to AI coaches on the phone, like just on my phone, right? And some of them can have avatars and you can create personalities for them. And I feel like it's so engaging that I don't even want to do that. Because I don't want to forget that this is not actually a person. Right? And like, it's good back and forth. It helps me think through things and like make some decisions. like, you know, just kind like a therapist does. giving you your same stuff back so you can reflect. But when you give me a robot that I'm supposed to hug and supposed to give me interaction and physical touch, I feel like that's too much for me.
Emilia Bourland
Oh, interesting. I elaborate on that a little bit more.
Brandy Archie
So like, then, like that's the one thing that humans have at this moment that machines do not, right? Like when you give a hug and you have endorphins that are let out and you can feel that sense of touch and there's different pressures of touch and like there's a lot that happens biochemically because of sense of touch. And that's the one thing that talking to an AI can't really get you and that humans need to get you, which is why we need to continue to have humans. We're made as communal creatures. And so if we replace that, with robots that do that for you, I think that's gonna distort a ton of things. And so, while I can appreciate a companion and somebody to talk to, especially because I know people who like to talk a lot and say the same things over and over and now everybody can handle that. And if they get engagement from the AI, then great. But if we're replacing the human touch with a machine, I feel scared about that.
Emilia Bourland
Yeah, I think we're actually on the same page as far as that goes. There's some really famous studies, probably a lot of our listeners have heard about before, were they, was it a study with like baby monkeys? Do you know what I'm talking about? I don't know. Were they, okay, so there's really famous study. was some kind of like infant animal, basically, where they, this is from probably, I don't know, 60s, 70s, 80s, I don't know. Someone will tell me. monkey mom. It was a fake monkey mom. That they like put cloth around and like the baby got attached to it. Yeah. Yes. Because it could touch it. And then so there was one group where the where the monkey could go and like get physical touch from this fake monkey mom. And then there was another group of monkeys that got like fed essentially. Yeah. Or fed more or something like that. I think no monkeys died in this study to my to my knowledge. Okay. But basically it showed that the monkeys who had who had touch, they developed more normally, they were thriving. The monkeys who had no touch but had all of their other nutritional needs met did very, very poorly. And I think, I think-
Brandy Archie
Oh yeah, because this is the study that helps tell us that like, we need to hold our babies while they're getting born. That's exactly right. And so, yeah, that's exactly what saying. That's what I'm saying. It's like the sense of physical human touch is really important for our bodies. Our bodies crave it and desire it. And we try to replace it with- That's actually another good point because technically based on that study, we could replace it with a robot because that little device didn't move. a cloth covered thing that was just kind of soft and warm. was enough touch to help the baby develop. It was.
Emilia Bourland
Now, of course, humans are not baby monkeys. That's true.
Brandy Archie
Not most of them.
Emilia Bourland
We'll put a pin in that. This could be a little bit more complicated. And I still really believe like deep down that humans need humans. Yeah, that's true. that we cannot replace everything about human connections with technology. And I'm afraid of going down that path. Yeah. Yeah, that is a good point. Yeah.
Brandy Archie
And to put the last, last, last pin in that, I think like if we do get to a point where enough people are replacing human interaction, human touch with machine, we don't know what the ramifications of that are. And I think that's challenging.
Emilia Bourland
Especially because we're moving so fast.
Brandy Archie
Yes. No guardrails. Okay. So let's do one more. How do you feel about hands-free voice agents? So, okay, people have had Alexa's and stuff at home for a long time, but they're very like defined. Even like Siri on your phone is like, you got to talk to her a certain kind of way. Now Alexa's got an upgrade, Siri has not yet. And there's plenty of other devices that do this. And so now your AI is built into that. How do you feel about that as a tool? How can it be useful and helpful? How is it challenging?
Emilia Bourland
I think it can be, it depends on the person, right? Like for me, I love that kind of tool. It allows me a way to interact a little bit more like naturally indirectly, as long as I understand how that tool is working. it really is a learning curve for understanding how to begin to actually interact and work with all these tools. It doesn't necessarily feel natural at first. I think that what it's really important to be aware of is that the more integrated these kinds of devices are into our lives and our homes, we need to understand what are the implications for our privacy. When is it listening? When is it not listening? We've got Google Homes all over my house. And every once in a we're not talking to Google, and Google will talk back to us, and we're like, we weren't talking to you. And that is a little more than a little creepy, actually. And so I think that that kind of thing makes me feel like, again, all of this is very cool, but we have to put on guardrails. And we really need to be thoughtful about what this really means for us, not just in the day to day, but also the longer term implications.
Brandy Archie
Yeah, I think the biggest benefit I see in it is that people who don't typically access the internet by browsing now are open to more information. That's the thing I see in the biggest way because, for example, I had a patient who had low vision, severe low vision from macular degeneration. She tried for a very long time and I helped her to be able to use her computer, but browsing the internet from our web browsers and all these little buttons, even with a screen reader, is really hard.
Emilia Bourland
Especially with like pop-ups and like, you know, banners.
Brandy Archie
very easily be in the wrong place really quickly. And not just wrong, like it's bad. It's like the place you wasn't expecting and then now your eyes are not understanding what you're seeing. And so I finally, I did kind push, but I finally convinced her that she would be capable of using it in Alexa. And once we got it, the most simplest one, because she was worried about the technology aspect of it. I was like, there is nothing you have to deal with. You just talk to it. She was so grateful and thankful. She can ask her questions, all the things she would normally Google, she can just talk about it. And it gave her more independence, because then she could shop online, understand what's going on with the weather and like make phone calls and like get little pieces of information that we do like without thinking all the time that she wasn't capable of doing, had to ask somebody for help. So I do think the voice assistants are really useful. And I do also think that the privacy aspect is a huge challenge, especially if you're not savvy enough to make sure you're setting words or turning it off or clearing things out. It can be a problem.
Emilia Bourland
Yeah, for sure. I do like that you brought up the fact that these devices can be really empowering and kind of even the playing field for folks who may have different levels of abilities with different kinds of sensory problems or challenges and things like that. And I mean, that is absolutely a, even like the physical ability to, if you've got Parkinson's disease and you're having trouble using a mouse or typing on a keyboard because of tremor. The ability to do a voice command for something is really, really huge. Of course, these things can integrate into smart homes and that can make things more accessible too. And that's all really positive. Yeah.
Brandy Archie
Okay.
Emilia Bourland
Okay.
Brandy Archie
I don't know if we came to any real conclusions, but these are our thoughts about AI. Hopefully it was helpful and you can think about ways that you can incorporate into your life if you want to and the ways things to think about. And if you have any more questions about that, please just drop in the chat. We're happy to dig into more of the details of the specifics.
And if you like this video, then please like and subscribe. And also leave us a review if you are listening on your podcast app so that we can be found by more people like you. All right.
Emilia Bourland
We'll see you right back here next time on CareLab. Bye, everybody.
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