6 Innovations to Help People Live Better as They Age

Telemedicine or telehealth — the terms are often used interchangeably — is not a perfect remedy in every case. You’ll still need to seek in-person care during a medical emergency.

But for more routine health scenarios, a remote visit may be just what the doctor ordered. You won’t have to mess with public transportation, drive yourself or get someone to take you.

Worth noting: COVID helped catalyze another health-related trend, a rise in the number and types of medical tests you can take on your own from home, from identifying respiratory viruses to testing your own eyesight, with more to come.

3. Smart cars make driving safer

Much has been written about self-driving cars, a prospect that both intrigues and wigs out drivers of all ages. While you may not quite be ready to let go of the wheel, the car you drive may already boast several other driver safety technologies, including lane departure alerts, blind-spot warnings and, should the worst happen, automatic crash notifications.

Watch for tech innovations that not only autonomously chauffeur people around or help them drive, but also assist with the challenge of getting older adults into and out of the vehicle and from the curb to the front door.

4. Alternate realities engage your mind

Some older adults have begun embracing virtual reality (VR) to overcome the mental, physical and social challenges that can come with aging.

By donning VR headsets like Quest from Facebook parent Meta, folks can attend concerts, confront phobias, do physical therapy, exercise, play virtual mini-golf or Ping-Pong, rekindle memories, scale mountains, travel to exotic places and even feel like they’re sharing a physical space with loved ones who live far away. In short, the headsets fully immerse a person in a simulated environment that would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to otherwise experience in real life.

Of course, wearing a contraption on your head isn’t for everyone. While some see VR and another interactive technology, augmented reality (AR), as opening doors to what is vaguely known as the metaverse, questions linger about how the physical and virtual worlds will collide with or complement each other.

Rather than going all immersive, AR layers virtual stuff on top of your view of the real world. These days, several games such as Pokémon GO, first released in 2016; Harry Potter: Wizards Unite; and Geocaching use the technology. The tape measure app built into your iPhone also uses augmented reality.

You don’t need a headset or special glasses to check out games and other AR experiences on your smartphone. 

In early June, Apple unveiled Vision Pro, a $3,499 set of mixed reality goggles the company is marketing as a first-of-its kind “spatial computer.” It is due out in 2024 and relies on your voice, eyes and hand gestures to control whatever you are seeing in front of you, from 3-D movies and FaceTime video calls to remarkably up close and personal encounters with dinosaurs and sharks. 

The stratospheric price and the fact that you still must wear something around your face will be inevitable barriers for many older adults. Still, Apple has a strong track record of turning slow-to-get going markets such as portable digital music players and tablet computers into mainstream products. Over time, the same could happen here.

5. Smart homes keep you independent

The all-things-connected-to-the-internet smart home hasn’t always been so smart or intuitive for users because products from one brand haven’t always played nice with products from another. Devices fall under the internet of things (IoT) rubric, and they encompass gizmos that include garage door openers, smart lights and plugs, security cameras, speakers and televisions.

IoT products can easily keep you connected to loved ones and emergency services through a smart speaker, which you may be using now. But other devices and services are being developed to help older adults remain independent and safe yet still maintain privacy. 

Through an emerging global industry standard called Matter that has support from the biggest names in tech, products from rival brands promise to work together seamlessly and securely, at least at some point. And that’s very smart indeed.

6. Robots assist around the house

You may have fantasized for decades about employing a humanoid robot helper such as The Jetsons’ maid, Rosie. But the robots most people live with nowadays more likely resemble Roomba, the robot vacuum that iRobot launched in 2002. Models from iRobot, and others that have come since then, will mop the floor or both vacuum and mop.

Emerging assistive robots from Labrador Systems, a company in AARP’s AgeTech Collaborative portfolio, reveal other ways robots can perform household chores. These self-driving robots can be trained to make “bus stops” around the home, perhaps by the couch or fridge, where they can retrieve food, beverages and other lightweight items and then bring them to you.

The Labrador Retriever model, with a deck that lifts to different heights, costs around $1,500, plus a monthly fee of $99 to $149.

The utility of social robots remains uncertain, and no one expects them to take the place of fellow humans or even pets. But robots such as ElliQ from Intuition Robotics are providing companionship for older adults.

Meanwhile, robots tied to a smart home can provide an additional set of eyes. For example, Amazon’s invitation-only $1,600 Astro home-monitoring robot (billed as Alexa on wheels) can, in conjunction with an Alexa Together subscription, remotely care for older parents or grandparents living alone.

“When you think about aging, so much of someone staying in their home is trying to understand their behavior patterns,” says Andy Miller, AARP’s senior vice president of AARP Innovation Labs.

“If you deviate from that pattern — Did they fall? Did they not eat? Did they get hurt? I usually see somebody walk by every 47 minutes [and they didn’t] — what happened?” he said. “The intelligence is going to far outweigh the crazy privacy, robots-taking-over concern that people are going to have.” 

This story, originally published April 3, 2023, has been updated to include information about AI mental health therapy, Apple's mixed reality headset, cautions about the technology and developments from AARP.