Join us for an enlightening conversation with Bevi Kothare, General Manager at Enable Care Management and PhD candidate in gerontology and leadership, who is dismantling the myth that all older adults fit into one neat box. Hosted by Nirvana Tari, Chief Patient Officer at CareYaya.
In this episode, Bevi exposes the uncomfortable truth about how the aging industry builds products in a vacuum, designing for "seniors" without actually including them in the process. From her frontline work as a geriatric care manager to her academic research on technology adoption, she reveals why the digital divide isn't just about giving older adults iPads and teaching them Zoom, but about a fundamental misunderstanding of how different generations use technology entirely differently.
The conversation tackles the hidden costs of our digital-first world: grocery stores charging $7.99 for bread unless you download an app and clip a digital coupon for $4.99, theme parks that force you to stare at your phone instead of experiencing the moment, and healthcare systems that make online booking easy while leaving those who call waiting for two hours. Bevi shares the story of a well-intentioned founder whose dementia tracking bracelet failed because he only designed it for his father, missing the reality that most people with dementia won't tolerate bulky new devices on their wrists.
From her dual perspective leading both a care management team and pursuing cutting-edge research, Bevi introduces the concept of geriatric care managers as "adult daughters for hire," professionals who handle the chaos so families can return to being family. She explains why they say you should have called them "yesterday," long before the crisis hits, and why conversations about happiness and favorite ice cream flavors matter more than rushing to make medical decisions in fight-or-flight mode.
Key insights include: why FaceTime is the number one app older adults actually love, the critical difference between building for one grandmother versus all grandmothers, why the fragmentation of aging services and insurance is a hot mess nobody wants to open, and how AI-generated recipes are now so confused they can't actually be cooked. Bevi also shares practical wisdom on when technology genuinely helps (data management, virtual doctor visits, medication reminders) versus when it risks replacing essential human connection.
Brought to you by CareYaya. America's #1-rated solution for in-home senior care, providing industry-leading quality care at the most affordable rates. It is known especially for delivering the most reliable and affordable overnight senior care and 24/7 care in many major metro areas including Atlanta, Boston, San Francisco, and Washington D.C.
This episode is essential listening for tech founders building products for older adults, sandwich generation caregivers feeling overwhelmed and isolated, families trying to navigate the bewildering maze of care options, and anyone who believes aging doesn't have to mean getting left behind by technology or society.
Episode Transcript:
Hello and good morning slash good afternoon, everybody. My name is Nirvana Tari, and I'm here with the one and only Bevy Katari, who is getting her PhD in gerontology and leadership with a focus on technology while also working full time as general manager at Enable Care Management. Hi, Bevy. How are you doing today? Hi, good. I'm doing well. Thank you so much for having me here. Of course. I'm so, so excited for this conversation. We've been talking about this for so long, and I'm really glad that it's finally here. Absolutely. Looking forward to it. Perfect timing for the new year and starting things all new. So everybody at home knows the deal. We're going to go ahead and just kick things off with our lightning round. So tell me, what is one app that older adults actually love using? I'm going to actually go with FaceTime. I think older adults love to just communicate and it's fast. I love it. That's such a good answer. I love FaceTime myself. So yeah. Next one is, when do you think families should call a geriatric care manager? Yesterday. Ah, so good. Honestly, that's dang it. That should have been the title of this podcast. yeah too often people call us too late or in the middle of crisis so i think it's yeah don't worry about it you should have done it yesterday yeah okay that's really good so today and literally right now any any time um so tell me one thing every tech founder building for seniors needs to know i think it's important to know if are they building for one senior or are they building for them all because it's very different They need to know, are they building for their grandmother or all the grandmothers? Such a good point. Such a good point. That's why user experience matters so much. Absolutely. Best advice you've gotten from an older adult client. I'm excited for this one. Honestly, it's just been enjoy the mundane. Enjoy the simple things. Enjoy the wake-ups and the regular things because those are the things that we're going to miss. I love it. Yeah, the little things is what we take for granted. What technology are you most excited about for aging adults? And you can go like crazy with this one. It could be like nothing like it exists. You know, honestly, I think the transportation technology is going to be very cool. I know we're just getting started with like Waymos and robo taxis and Zooks that are slowly going around. But I think five, ten years from now when it's really perfected, it's going to really help older adults really move and go anywhere they want. Right now, they have to really rely on Uber or friends or family members. I think I'm really excited for that. It's so important for access. Let's see, let's see. What surprised you most about working in memory care? Because I know you have some experience doing that too. Just how different it is and how when people are at their raw, you know, as memory care, oftentimes with Alzheimer's and different dementias, The core of your being is what remains at the very end. And to see people at their core is sometimes really beautiful. Yeah, absolutely. I love that. If you could fix one thing about aging services tomorrow. What would that be? The fragmentation of it all. Here's my list. Yes. The fragmentation, honestly. Everything is just all spread out. There's no central way, and there isn't a perfect way. Everybody's kind of approaching it differently. Yeah. To be able to kind of combine it and understand what is the right path, that would be great. That was one of my original goals with starting this podcast was because I realized there's no resource hub. where people can go to and find out like everything that they need to know a to z and you know obviously i'm i'm very very far away from creating something like that but i think that's like my goal and my dream is to like have something where people can be like oh i need this so i can go listen to this podcast and i need this and i can go write the publication um but yeah so so important Can I add one more to that? I would say insurance. It's a hot mess. We're going to open that can of worms. I'm just kidding. I'm just going to say that one word and then we'll end it right there. Yeah, I think everyone knows exactly what you mean when they hear that. So, yeah. um and last one let's wrap it up best way to convince a resistant parent that they need help i know this is a tough one that's a tough one honestly a lot of times it's bringing in a third party because people don't like to listen to their friends and family right they know them they know what their weaknesses are but sometimes it does take that doctor or geriatric care manager to come in and kind of be that authority and be like we need some help let's talk about how we can help that's such a good point i'm really glad that you actually brought that up in the way that you did as well because so often like the work that you do is so important because it allows for family caregivers to return to their role as a son or a daughter or a wife or a husband, because we lose that so often when we become caregivers. Um, and it's really heartbreaking because it's, it's important to maintain that relationship, especially in those last few years that, you know, it's those last few years and, uh, losing that and kind of, um, Yeah, so I salute you and think that the work that you do really, really matters. Thank you. Of course. So, Ms. Bevy, almost Dr. Katari, you've been a social worker, worked in assisted living, memory care, led tech companies, and now you manage geriatric care management while finishing up your Ph.D. Walk us through that journey. What connects all of these different roles for you? Oh, boy, that's a hard question. But it's always kind of been the end goal has been the same, is to make a difference in the lives of older adults and people that maybe cannot help themselves. Whether when I was social worker, I really worked with the lower income population, folks that really had very, very little money. And how do we use the services that are available to help make a difference? Working memory care, working at pace, working with individuals that can no longer make decisions. And then moving to tech, working as a social worker, it's very one-on-one, right? Let me help this one person today in this one hour that I'm here. When I moved to tech, it was really about how can I make a difference with a product, helping multiple people, hundreds of people, thousands of people. So I think that has always been the same. And it's very true even right now as a care manager and helping lead that team. It's how do we make a difference with what we have, whether it's financially, whether it's resource-wise, whether it's location-wise, what's available to that person. Absolutely. I mean, I think that I guess the underlying driving factor is health. and how to kind of make someone else's life that like just one percent easier even whether it's one person or whether it's thousands of people I love that I really really do you know this is more of just like a just so people can know but for someone who's maybe never heard of geriatric care management what is it exactly and you know I know we already asked when someone needs you but who really when does specifically someone need you? Yeah, absolutely. So geriatric care manager, it can be a lot of things and it's a lot of things to different people, but to think of it as really having an expert guide you through whatever that individual or that family member is going through. And that's why we say yesterday, because as soon as you think this person needs help, they've probably needed that help yesterday. And oftentimes people come to us when It's too late when they've had a crisis, when they've had a fall, when they're in the hospital or diagnosis, and we're kind of helping bridge those gaps and put a plan in place. but really as a care manager and as a, an expert in the field, I would say, do this ahead of time, do this when you're not in crisis. We don't want to be at the hospital taking notes because that path really is not just about medical care, but it's about happiness, right? Like what does this person want in over the next five years or five months or even five days, which may be their last. So how do we plan for that? And let's do that in a a happy environment. Let's do that when everybody's calm. Exactly. Totally. We really like to think of geriatric care management as having the adult daughter for hire. We love adult sons. We have great men on our team as well. But typically that caregiver role statistically does fall upon women. And it's that adult daughter that assumes that responsibility. And being the oldest adult daughter, maybe I have that in me, but we try to be that professional adult daughter. We're in no way replacing family. But as you said earlier, we want to have your family be family, right? We don't want them to be that caregiver or that decision maker or, you know, kind of that person in the chaos. Let us handle the chaos and you can go back to being family. I love that framing of it. You're adult daughter for hire. That's, that's something that I've never heard of it as like, you know, freight phrasing that way. And that's really, really perfect. And honestly, I feel like we could have a whole nother podcast on the whole gender roles and the gap caregivers. And because it's even something that we see at Careyaya as well. Like there's people like, just the people who are like even managing the care for mom or dad, even when it is like the son doing it, it's the son's wife managing the care. So it's the daughter-in-law that's working that as well. And of course there's amazing, amazing sons out there who are doing care. And I don't want to take any credit away from great sons and brothers who are managing the care, but I'm just speaking statistically. It's about. Absolutely. Absolutely. So I want to pivot a little bit and go into tech and some of your research, which focuses on aging and innovation, specifically how technology can change lives for older adults. But you've kind of seen a consistent pattern from what we've talked about is that tech companies are building products for older adults without actually including them in the design process. So why does this keep happening and what can we do? Yeah. So I think oftentimes tech companies are started with one experience, right? It might be the founder, the CEO who says, Hey, I have this one problem and I feel like everybody has this problem. So let's solve for it, which is often true, correct? Like people share problems. Yes. But they kind of approach it in a single lane highway, right? There's with older adults and all the different things that are happening. There's a lot of exits and there's a lot of bumps and different things that could be involved. So I think it's important for founders and tech executives to always involve older adults because they're all the same. They're just like you and I, they're people. Everybody's very, very different. So products that are meant for older adults should really be inclusive of all types. A lot of times people just do you know focus groups that might include five or ten people in the initial phase maybe in the design phase once or twice in research but that's it that could be like three to five hours in the entire development span of several years yeah no that's such a good point i think it's really important to have kind of that inclusive built in all the way through whether you have somebody on your board whether somebody on staff include them inside right have them be on your design team have them sitting on kind of the mock-ups and so forth yeah important to have that first-hand knowledge and also people from the industry it's not just about older adults but people that have you know social workers nurses doctors care managers people that have kind of been in this world and see see in all different shapes it takes a village it really really does they mean that when they say that um that's a really great point because that's it's It's about the people that sort of like also see that on a day-to-day basis as well and like have that expertise and that knowledge. Yeah, I hadn't thought about it in that way, but I love that. I love that framing. So give me sort of a concrete example. What's a product or app in the aging space that had potential and then kind of completely missed the mark because older adults weren't in the room, if you can think of one? Yeah. So a few years ago I was actually at like a tech presentation and next to me was a booth and it was a gym and I started talking to him and he said, well, I started this product because my father had dementia and he would often leave the house. So he was pretty good at home, but he would just leave the house in the middle of the night and we couldn't find him. And this was a little bit before iPhones and everybody had Apple Watches and so forth. What he did was he built a pretty big bracelet for his father. He said, I solved it. My father would wear this bracelet all the time. If he ever wandered away from me or if we were out, I could track him and that was it. It was great. I wanted to mass market it. Okay, that's great. He's solving for that one problem. If he had spoken with anybody in the industry or somebody that worked with dementia, different types of dementia, he would know that especially towards the end of dementia or in those middle stages, they're not going to want to wear a big product on their wrist. Yeah. Especially like say a woman who's probably, you know, maybe wasn't used to wearing a watch or didn't wear bracelets. You can't do something new, a bulky thing on there. And so unfortunately, I actually ended up following that product for a while. And it did end up failing because he didn't kind of include other scenarios. It worked well for him because his father had worn a watch his whole life. So swapping out that watch for a bracelet, like a bulky bracelet, worked just fine. But in reality, you know, if he thought kind of outside the box, maybe a device that was hidden in a shoe or in the back of their shirt, that would have gone a lot farther. So just one time. Yeah. Built in a vacuum, yeah, totally. That's such a great point because I was like, oh my god, genius. Tracking, that's so important. And especially when the everyday tracking devices weren't just available and on us. But yeah, that's so interesting. Wow. Your brain works in such an interesting way because you see the problem before it actually becomes a problem. I love it. I guess that's why you're getting your PhD right now. When a founder comes up to you and tells you, I'm building for older adults, what questions do you ask them to figure out if they're doing it right? Or I guess maybe if there's a framework that founders can start asking themselves about. Yeah, I think it kind of really goes back to what problem are you trying to solve, right? What are you building this product for? Are you building this product for seniors? Are you building this for caregivers? And are you building it for more than one? I think that's my number one thing. Can this be replicated towards different types of older adults? They don't all fit in the same box. There's different categories, there's ethnicities, there's cultural differences, there's financial differences, there's education differences. you know, if they're doing a focus group in the Bay Area where I'm in, it's going to be very different than a focus group in rural Arkansas. Let's be honest. So who are they building this product for? And can it, because with tech, the whole, it's all about scale, right? It's about moving and it's going nationwide, worldwide. But in order to do that, you know, in scale from the very beginning, are they building this to scale? Right. Yeah, that's such a good point. I mean, if you're not, then again, you're just building in that vacuum and you're building it for your grandma or grandpa or aunt or uncle. Which could be fine. It could work for a handful of people. That's what you want. That's perfect. But a lot of the tech folks that I do speak with and the founders, they are really building for scale. Building for scale. Yeah, totally. Absolutely. Um, um, let's, yeah, I guess I kind of want to pivot or I guess kind of on the same track, but the digital divide, you know, um, let's break it down for our audience. When we talk about the digital divide and aging, what are we actually talking about? And is it just about access to devices and the internet or like, what does it really mean? Yeah, so the digital divide, that term has really been around for some time. And originally it started off as this lack of older adults are just not using technology. They're not using smartphones, they're not using computers. And then you have a group of younger people who are, so there's an actual divide, correct? And over time, over the last ten, fifteen years, we're seeing that it's become a little bit more gray because people that were maybe, you know, were still working their nineties in in nineteen ninety are now older adults and they've been around technology. They're using it a little bit, but they're not using it to the same capacity that maybe younger adults are. Right. So it's a little bit gray right now, but that divide still is there because people use technology differently. The very first question was, what's the number one app? Right. If you go to the app store, I bet you it's not going to be FaceTime. Right. It's probably some kind of social media or music app. because different generations use technology differently. So right now, older adults, the ones that I interact with nearly on a daily basis, they're using it more for communication tool. They're using more of kind of like a Swiss army knife where they're doing it to do something else that can't be done other ways, right? That's the only way we can call somebody now is typically through a smartphone. Landlines are hard to come by and most people don't even have them anymore. right when you talk to a younger person what are you using your phone for they're probably on some kind of social media they're communicating in a different way maybe they're communicating with people they don't even know it's for a different audience yeah they're doing it because they have to not because they necessarily want to exactly that's so interesting you've got me thinking about something else now so you know you mentioned earlier like some some older adults are familiar with technology and have been using technology now so fast forward fifty years um when Gen Z and Millennials are sort of the older adults and Gen Alpha is starting to become the older adults do you think that that digital divide is still going to exist like do you think that there will always be such a thing as a digital divide I think it will exist in a different way obviously Millennials and Gen Z and You know, everybody in later generations has kind of grown up with technology. But there's still things that even I as a millennial don't use online because I'm like, oh, that's just not for me. I don't need that. I don't need to have that app. I don't need to do that. Does that say that I can't do it? No, I can probably do it. I can download and do it. i just don't want to yeah and i think that um will still be happening as i get older when i in fifty years there's gonna be things where i'm like i really just don't care to do that and that divide will still be there but for things like we talked about maybe transportation when there's a car that's gonna come pick me up and take me somewhere yeah it's i'm gonna have to do it and i'll know how to do it so the divide will be a little bit even more gray but i think it will still be there Yeah, totally. So there's this sort of assumption that if we just give older adults iPads and teach them Zoom, problem solved. Why is that like sort of an incomplete and like a harmful view even potentially? Yeah, well, there's so many different things wrong with that view, right? First of all, you take an iPad out of the house and unless it's got on cellular, it's kind of a brick, right? You're not connected to anything. So first and foremost, you need that internet connection, that cellular connection to work anywhere. And Zoom is just one app, right? It's a great app. It did wonders, especially during COVID in connecting people. but there's just so much more about technology. And we often focus on technology just as smartphones, but it's a lot more than that. It's health technology, it's transportation technology, even medication technology these days, right? So everything is kind of wrapped around this world of technology that older adults are having to become accustomed to. Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, it's very, very, you know, the whole like... like wi-fi versus like cellular thing and like having access to that i do hope that that's something that's i feel like that won't be a problem hopefully when we're older adults like that'll be something that everyone will have access to at all times and like be constantly connected so it's cool to see how like technology has evolved over time and like if we were to go back fifty years what that looked like and what the technology then was like that older adults were less um open to accepting and like have fully been integrated into everybody's lives now Yep. So kind of like staying on this whole digital divide track, what's the human cost of the digital divide that people miss? And what happens when older adults are getting left behind? We talk about this loneliness epidemic and stuff, but what is the true cost of it? I think it this is where we often lose people. And even financially, if you go right now to your grocery store, just the other day I saw where it was a loaf of bread and it said seven ninety nine. First of all, that's crazy for a loaf of bread. What? So, you know, you have a loaf of bread, but then there's one more tag underneath it and it says if you scan You're going to get it for six ninety nine. OK, great. But now if you scan it and clip it in your app, you get that piece of bread for four ninety nine. So as if it if it was really an older adult who maybe does not have that cellular connection, you said they just have an iPad. They're not going to be able to connect and be that member to scan it in the first place. Or are they going to be clipping it later on to a digital coupon to get it? So financially, that person is already losing out. And that's just one item that maybe they're buying. So, you know, throughout their entire basket of groceries, that could be an extra twenty, thirty dollars that they're missing out on. And that's just like a concrete example of what could be happening. The same goes to when you're going to a doctor's appointment and the doctor says, OK, well, sign up online. we can book it online. But if you call us, there's a two hour wait. We got to go through the phone tree and maybe the appointments are limited. You can only hear two or three. So, you know, that's just, there's so many things right now that we rely on technology for, which in a way is good, but in a way it does leave people behind that can't follow up and can't, can't do it. So far behind. It's, I mean, I feel like, honestly, I'm twenty five and I sometimes feel like I'm like some, I don't know how to do that. Like, what is that? I don't know what how to function that technology. And like, I feel like the speed that technology moves at is exponential, not necessarily linear. So it's like, there's ten more things that there were yesterday and there's going to be twenty more things tomorrow. And it's yeah. But, you know, let's kind of get real with this, though. How do we actually solve this? Like, are there any practical steps that you can think of that families and companies can start taking today to get to lessen that divide a little bit? I think overall when technology companies specifically talking to them, when they're building apps and they're building products, I think it's important for them to realize, is this actually helping a situation where they might've thought, well, this is helping. I'm going to make products cheaper for my consumers while understanding their habits, or is this actually making it worse? making them disconnect. I read somewhere where a lot of the theme parks, right? Everything is on apps now where you book your wait in time on apps for the lines and you buy food, but then it's taking away from the fact you're actually in a theme park and you're looking out and enjoying yourself. Right. So I think we have to solve for as a society where technology does not go away from that human experience. The human experience still has to be on top of the list and technology should solve for things that we don't want to do. It should solve for waiting in line at the DMV. It should solve for, you know, doing the mundane things that we don't want to do. Yeah. I saw this thing the other day where it was like, I don't want technology to like, you know, do my work for me so that I can go get my laundry done. I want technology to get my laundry done for me so that I can do the creative work that I want to be doing and the people that I want to be talking to. And that's so, so true because I feel like a lot of the times, even with AI, I have such a love-hate relationship with AI. And I'm like, it's great and it's so practical and has so many great uses. And even for older adults, like if taught well, like AI can like even just like a regular like chat GPT, like I'm a seventy five year old and I have these dietary restrictions and I have been experiencing like knee pain here and I have these ingredients in my fridge right now. Like, what can I make for dinner tonight? Like something like that is so amazing and like helps in such great ways but then also you see all of this stuff where first of all the environmental impact of it is something that is a whole thing in and of itself but also you know scams and um like the lack of protections that are in place and again just how this fast it's moving we don't even know what impact it's going to have long term um so it's really important to just again, make sure that human experiences remain human and that we keep people at the center of everything. So I kind of want to pivot towards a little bit more of, you know, support options for families and, you know, your work as a care manager and enable and things like that. So it can get really, really overwhelming. There's pediatric care management, there's home health, assisted living, memory care, adult daycare centers, independent living. How do you even begin to navigate all of this? And what's the first step? What's the second step? Is there a first step that can be used for everybody or you just, you know? Well, so I think first and foremost, it's always good to take a step back. Not everybody needs all the things, right? Most people, if they're thinking about retirement or something, they're not automatically going to be looking into adult daycare. They're very extreme. So I think it's always important to take that step back. Understand from an expert. I would say this is a part where maybe don't chat GPT it because chat GPT doesn't understand the whole spectrum of things sometimes. It is different also based on where you live and you want to look into your finances as well. These things are not cheap. So um i i would say take a step back first um not putting a plug for us but talk talk to a geriatric care manager there's not just enable but there's so many great ones around the us um alka is a great organization that kind of um lists a lot of them so if you're in a different area definitely reach out to them talk and understand what the problem is. As a geriatric care manager, we always like to sit, before we start helping, we always sit down and understand what's going on right now. Where are we right now? What are all the different things we want to look at? And we kind of tackle it one at a time. And that's why we always say don't do it in crisis. Because when you're in crisis, the number one thing you're going to try to do is get out of crisis. But when you're not in crisis, we can actually ask the important things of like, what's your favorite ice cream? What's your favorite color? Because that should be where you want to head towards. It's about that happiness, right? It's not just about getting somebody in a hospital or getting them out or getting them in a facility or getting home care. It should be about what is the best path in order to be the most happiest. I think that that's such a good point because when you're kind of in that fight or flight, there's like, everything is kind of like red and there's no, like, you're more likely to make decisions that you may regret later on and be like, wait, I didn't actually need to move mom into memory care right now. Like that wasn't like a necessary step to take. And I also see it all the time as well, where people like do something. And then like two months later, when, you know, they've had some space and time to like think about, they're like, nope, to not do that actually and it's you can save yourself money sanity and like a lot of um happiness yeah thank you yeah um by just sort of taking that breather and yeah maybe the first step is a lot of the place a lot of places have Like free consultations as well, if I'm not mistaken, right? Absolutely. We actually run a support group called Champions of Chaos. So if anybody listening would just like to pop in, talk to a geriatric care manager and just kind of get a feel for things, that is a no-cost option. There's a lot of area agencies on aging. Every county has one. I know in California it's a two one one number, but different resources are always available to older adults and their family members. It's not always the older adult that's looking for help, but it could be their family. Champions of Chaos. I really love that name. That might be my favorite support group name that I've heard of because that's so true. And support groups, gosh, so important. These are resources that are available everywhere, like in almost every single place. And if you can't make them in person, there's so many online ones available as well. the power in numbers and just knowing, because what is it? I just recently, because I usually say one in six Americans are family caregivers, but I recently learned that it's one in four point five now. So there are so many people in the same boat as you just not really talking about it necessarily. And you're not alone. At the end of the day, this care is something that's going to touch every single human being at some point in their life, whether they're a care recipient a caregiver or you know love someone who is a caregiver or a care recipient um that it's just yeah so it's definitely something that is there for you and it's something that you should take advantage of even even if you feel like you don't have the time to just try um but yeah you took the word right out of my mouth I really I again I love this whole um champions of chaos thing so from your perspective why is it important to build community like why is that something that family caregivers especially should sort of partake in and participate in I think it's again a lot about that human connection yeah it's something that you know, while you can ask a prompt chat GPT and get a response of, you should do one, two, and three. Sometimes the family caregivers that we speak with, they might even know that answer themselves. They know it might be time to talk about memory care. It might be talk about facilities, but the human connection is the most powerful thing. Sometimes hearing it from an outside perspective, sometimes it's having that bouncing wall to somebody to talk to and agree with you or not agree with you even. And that is something that's really, really important in the world of caregiving, I would say. And even in the world of gerontology in general, whether it's that older adult that kind of knows what's coming up, might've gotten a diagnosis or has a fall or is having limited mobility, having somebody to talk to and acknowledge, I get it, this is hard, this is not easy, but let's make the best of the situation. Let's see what we can do to move forward. You are not alone. You're not alone. You're not alone. I will say that I will scream it from the rooftops. Um, your position is really, really unique. Um, again, given that you have both that experience and expertise and, you know, education, um, in tech and leading tech companies, and of course not running care management. Um, so where do you think technology is truly helping families and where should they cut it out? Because it's just making things too complex. Um, I think it would really just go back to that human connection. I think technology is really great in terms of like, um, data and Without technology, data is just piles of numbers. When I first took my statistics class, we had to do things the old fashioned way of literally by hand doing stats is not fun. And now you can use computers to just kind of put in spreadsheets and get pretty graphs. So I like to use that example in real life as well. If it's data and it's mundane and it's numbers, And it's making, you know, putting files together, putting your will together, putting trust together. All of that is great to house online and use technology. Technology is great for communication. When you want to talk to a doctor and you can't get an appointment, you can speak to a virtual doctor pretty much instantly these days. But that human touch is where technology is not the best supplement. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Times people say, well, you know, having a virtual appointment is horrible. Like I want to go see a doctor. Absolutely. Seeing a doctor is always going to be a hundred times better, but it's not, uh, one or the other. It should be, if I can't physically go see a doctor, the second best thing is to have that virtual appointment. It's so important, especially for people who are maybe in more rural areas as well, or people who may not have that direct access because like, again, totally on the same page about the whole like human connection. But if the technology is able to enhance that human connection, that's where we've like kind of really hit the gold. Um, with that because a lot of the times, you know, the neuro, the closest neurologist is a three hour drive away. And, um, you know, of course you'll go for your annual visit and like when you need to, but there's an emergency happening and you need to talk to them this week. And there's just no way that you're going to be able to get mom who has dementia and hates car rides in a car for three hours and kind of do that. So that's when you use that medication management, I feel like is another great one where technology, um, can be used and, uh, you know, like And like remote monitoring, making sure that, you know, mom is okay and got out of bed today and can't be there in person. Does it replace a caregiver? No, it doesn't. Absolutely not. A caregiver can't be there and cannot do that reminder better than not having anything. Exactly. Exactly. And that's, that's, that's what I always like to think of technology as is like a last resort or something that's there in case. In case you need it. Exactly. A hundred percent. So, you know, I'd love to talk a little bit more about your research specifically and sort of like the questions that you're asking and things like that. What is one thing that you wish the whole industry would understand from specifically the work that you're doing right now? Yeah, so a big cornerstone of my research is understanding the attitudes and perceptions of older adults as they use technology and in their daily lives currently. And it's twofold. One is to, again, understand how much they need to be considered in the design elements of technology. And two is to understand, is this actually helping? Is this actually beneficial or is it causing more chaos? More harm than good. And hopefully the research will also let us know where are we leading towards? Are older adults being more accepting of it? And maybe we need to focus on having better technology or is it better to scrap it altogether? And I know that's not gonna happen, but as a researcher, I have to come completely unbiased and understand what is actually happening and have the data speak to it. yeah absolutely absolutely um that's such an important question and when never mind i'm not even going to ask this because this is the worst question to ask a phd student but i look forward to the day that you get your phd because i'm gonna read all of your research and learn all about it and we're gonna work together to make the aging space um amazing and in terms of technology So I'm going to ask you one more question, and I know our audience is eager and has some questions for us as well. But for families who are listening right now, feeling overwhelmed by caregiving or just watching their parents struggle, what do you want them to walk away with from this conversation? First and foremost, that they're not alone. You know, it may seem like they're in a world where nobody else understands. But in reality, there's a lot of people out there that understand. And there's a lot of experts in this field that would be happy to hold their hand and kind of walk them through it. There is a path. You might not be able to see it. But it's about kind of decluttering it, decluttering all the different problems and the situations. And having that path not necessarily lead to a specific goal, but it could just be for happiness. If somebody has only two weeks to live, it shouldn't be about what can we do? What are the meds that we can pump out? What's happening? Let's take a step back and focus on that quality of life. And it could be for five days. It could be for ten years. And that's for all of us. It could be that for the next fifty years. what does that path look like in terms of reaching happiness? And it's fine to ask for help. It's completely fine to ask for help. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's, you know, again, I know we're, we're giving, we're throwing a little bit of shade at the men today, but I really want our male, specifically our male audience to take that to heart because I see it so often that it's like a lot of the times it's harder for men to ask for help in these situations and instances. And I really, really, want everyone to know that it's so OK. And help is something that we will all need at some point in our lives. And if anything, it's a sign of strength to recognize and show that, hey, I'm not. I'm feeling these feelings and I need to kind of get that support that I need. So yeah, absolutely. We have a lot of supporters in the comments. I guess I did not read these live by any means. I was abroad in our conversation, didn't even notice these coming in. But yes, yesterday, absolutely. So we agree that care management is very, very important. And yes, transportation as well. Also very, very important thing to take into consideration. We have a question about how a lot of innovation today focuses on AI and automation and caregiving. From your perspective, where does technology genuinely help older adults and caregivers? We kind of talked about this, but let me know if you have anything to add here. Help older adults and caregivers, and where does it risk making things worse if we're not careful? Do you have anything to add? I think with AI, AI is pulling things from the internet. So I think it's always important to know Don't let AI make decisions for you. Use AI with your own knowledge and ask it, what's the best way to do this thing with these parameters? Always give it parameters rather than having it go to the World Wide Web and just choosing anything and everything. Like you said earlier, using AI to say, what's a good meal to make when I have these five ingredients in the fridge? But I recently just read an article that said now recipes online are doing AI and they don't even make sense or they can't actually be cooked because they're making different ingredients with different AI models together. Oh my gosh, the AIs are confusing each other now. That's right. So I think it's important to not use it as a, your sole form of information and education. Don't really use it for education. Use it as a tool along with your own knowledge. Yeah. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Another one here that we kind of was a common theme. Older adults are often treated as a single user group. What nuances do builders and policymakers most often miss when designing for aging populations? I think they like to focus on segments and they focus on the sixty five and above or the eighty five and above or those with dementia. I think that's like the biggest misconception and it drives me absolutely wild as a geneticologist is when people confuse the word dementia with Alzheimer's. Alzheimer's is a type of dementia and dementia itself can be so varied. It's a category of symptoms. And while they typically follow that same trend, um it's not all the same so when building when builders and policy makers make rules and products for older adults i think it's really important not to clump things together yeah you're solving for and then solve for that thing yeah you don't need to solve for every single older adult sometimes you just need to be solving for specific group older adults as well so yeah um But yeah, I'm still thinking about this point too. But someone mentioned how they hadn't considered that this new digital coupon trend is completely disregarding older adults. Honestly, it's disregarding me too because I don't really like downloading. I absolutely hate downloading a new app in a certain store. But sometimes you have to because you want to get the ten percent off. Right. And sometimes they make it's like it's sick. And I didn't notice this at first. Like I didn't notice that this was the thing. Like it was just like, oh, like. you know, I think it was Harris theater that I went to. Um, and I have like a Vic card, a very important customer, like whatever. And I'm like, that should be enough for me to get the discounts that you have at the store. Why did you download this app? Um, but I went up and I like, you know, my total was like, ten or fifteen dollars more than I expected it to be. And I was like, oh, I thought all these things were on sale. And she's like, they are, you need to download the app. And I was like, oh. I have no storage on my phone. I will not be downloading an app. Thank you very much. It's annoying. And sometimes you're like, well, I don't have reception here. To even get on the Wi-Fi, you have to get the app and you have to get an account. And all of those big grocery stores, I feel like, are dead spots for cell service for some reason. I don't know if that's just the thing here, but I feel like I've noticed it. There's places in the Bay Area where there's zero cell service in Silicon Valley. What's happening? This is where technology lives. But yeah, med management is a big one. And then we have one more question here about more practical ways that technology can help enhance the lives of our grandparents or aging parents that involve more than just them watching TV or calling and FaceTiming them. Yeah, so I think technology or the internet can have so many different things. So instead of just consuming media, especially like TikTok or Instagram or scrolling things, I think there's also this whole other education piece that's online, right? And I definitely encourage people to look at the local universities, whether it's taking an online class, instead of just consuming things, especially garbage sometimes, consume things that are educational, something that you learn, something that you can interact with. So there's so many groups out there. There's a group for everything, like every single possible thing you can think of in the world, there's a group for. So instead of just kind of consuming Facebook as a whole, maybe follow a specific community of things that you want to be a part of that and interact with that. If there's something that you've always wanted to learn, there's so many different classes available, even for free, Khan Academy and you know, different ones to learn something educational and kind of take it away from technology, if you will. So don't just kind of sit there and like get that, but then use that as a form of enhancing your life. Yeah. Coursera is another one that does the free courses. That's actually such a good point. And then also like, I feel like nowadays there is so like, there's like social media isn't just Instagram, TikTok anymore. There's like so many different forms, like Substack even where you can, like kind of get more of that like long form stuff as well, where you're like, you know, advancing yourself and your like brain and things like that further as well. And I think that that's really, really cool. And thank you for that suggestion. I will actually be taking that into consideration instead of just scrolling randomly, like why not join groups and things like that. And, you know, just another tip for caregivers, I feel like there's a lot of Facebook groups there as well for caregivers, And there's like millions of them out there, specifically like to your area, specifically for like, there's like FTD Facebook groups. There is like Alzheimer's Facebook groups. There's like Parkinson's, like daughters of people with Parkinson's, sons of people with Parkinson's. There's like, you know, wives of people with Parkinson's. You can find your niche and you can hopefully find human connection through your social media forms as well. We have someone agreeing that asking for help is not a sign of weakness. Ellen, we have a comment here. Absolutely. And I don't want to say that men are not involved. I think men are just as involved in caregiving and in this field. And by me saying, you know, adult daughter, that again, does not mean that there's not adult. Even our team has some great men on our care managers. But again, I was just speaking statistically as a whole, but in no way dismissive of the men that are doing all the work out there. Ditto everything that Bevy just said. And, you know, as you mentioned in here, there are many families without females around and therefore the men need their own pathways of support to aid and assist. And we as a country and as a whole could just do more to support our caregivers, period. Like there is not, excuse me, I think something we can all agree upon is that there's not nearly enough support out there for family caregivers. And there's support groups specifically for men as well. Like technology and Facebook, there's specifically support groups that are catered towards men, which maybe even be beneficial for them versus more traditional one that has mixed parties. And also, I would love to direct you to my previous podcast with Dr. Peter Abadir, who's a geriatrician at Johns Hopkins University and seven other titles. But one of his passions is sort of empowering male caregivers and sort of creating spaces for them as well. So there's so many great resources in there as well, if you're interested in listening or for any of our audience that's listening right now. But I have kept Bevy longer than I needed to. And as I always do, I'm so sorry, but this was so invigorating and I had such a wonderful time getting to know you better and sort of hearing your perspective on these things. And I really, really appreciate you taking the time to be here with me today. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. This is fun. I hope you had as much fun as I did. And I hope that everybody has a wonderful, wonderful new year. And hopefully, twenty twenty six is the year that caregiving issues finally make it onto the ballot and that the advocacy continues. And again, we're all in this together. Thank you. But thanks for being here. Hope everyone has a lovely rest of their day. And yeah. Bye, y'all. Bye.