Patty Miller
The Edmond Sun
EDMOND —
Innovative technology being used at a local senior community supports senior independence while helping to improve the quality of care.
One of Edmond’s best-kept secrets, Copperlake Estates is located off 15th Street west of Kelly. Nestled among trees on 35 acres with its own seven-acre lake, this senior community, complete with privacy homes, independent living apartments and an assisted living center, has invested in a new innovative technology for its seniors.
Copperlake Estates recently invested in QuietCare, a remote, camera-less monitoring system that uses small wireless motion sensors in each apartment to learn and detect patterns of daily living. The sensors send information to the staff when changes in behavior occur.
As Copperlake Estates seniors enjoy the independence and privacy of their own apartments, they can do so with confidence that the care staff can be alerted rapidly to any changes in their health or mobility.
Copperlake has 38 assisted living apartments that use QuietCare.
“We continuously assess our residents’ well-being, and QuietCare helps us to work together to make smarter decisions about residents’ care needs,” said Sandy Vereb, sales specialist with Senior Lifestyle Corporation.
According to Scott Abendschein, Copperlake Estates is the first senior retirement community in Oklahoma to employ the QuietCare system to help them provide a higher level of care while also supporting the privacy and independence of seniors living there.
“QuietCare supplements the high quality personalized care that Copper Lake Estates is known for with technology that provides our residents an additional level of comfort and security,” Abendschein said.
QuietCare enables the Copperlake Estates’ assisted living center staff to non-intrusively monitor seniors’ daily living patterns in the home. When significant changes in daily activity are detected, QuietCare automatically sends alerts so the staff can respond to possible health, safety or wellness issues.
QuietCare can monitor a high number of unusual activities including a nighttime bathroom visit without a return to bed, or a higher total number of visits than is normal to the place where prescription medicines are kept.
Software identifies the activities, and staff can then respond to emergency alerts or view and assess activity changes as possible indicators of health trends or problems.
“With QuietCare, we now have the ability to detect potential emergencies, such as a possible bathroom fall, no morning wake-up activity or extremes in apartment temperatures, earlier than we might have otherwise,” Abendschein said. “QuietCare can alert our staff to potentially dangerous situations so we can intervene quickly.”
Being sold by General Electric, QuietCare was designed to help seniors live with increased peace of mind and greater independence. The system includes small wireless motion sensors — not cameras or microphones — installed throughout a resident’s apartment or living unit.
Coupled with powerful software, the sensors detect and learn patterns of movement created by the resident’s round-the-clock activities, such as when they awaken, go to sleep, prepare meals, reach for medication or use the bathroom.
“Our goal is to proactively address the needs of our residents on an on-going basis in order to better assist them with daily living activities and health issues,” Abendschein said.
“It’s all about helping them to enjoy their independence longer, with greater safety and in better health. It’s also about giving them and their families the peace of mind that they’re being well cared for.”
To find out more about Copperlake Estates visit at 1225 Lakeshore Drive in Edmond. For more information about QuietCare at Copperlake Estates please call 340-5311, e-mail sabendschein@seniorlifestyle.com or visit www.seniorlifestyle.com.
Additional information on the QuietCare system also may be found at www.gehealthcare.com/quietcare.
