A residence for seniors in Lanaudière has succeeded in avoiding tragic incidents and overcoming the shortage of personnel thanks to technological advances that could inspire the network in the future.
“We set ourselves the crazy goal of becoming the leader in services for seniors in Quebec, and technology was the solution,” explains Sébastien Buisson, general manager of Habitations Bordeleau, a residence for seniors (RPA ) located in Saint-Charles-Borromée, in Lanaudière.
After having already implemented tools to facilitate the work of his employees, such as task tracking on tablets, Mr. Buisson wanted to go further.
“With the tragic death of Gilles Duceppe’s mother, who died of hypothermia outside her residence, we wanted to find a solution to avoid that,” he explains.
And it was when the Living lab Lanaudière, created by the Economic Development Corporation of the MRC de Joliette, put Mr. Buisson and the start-up Montreal company Evey Innovation that the project was able to materialize.
“Our product is installed on the walls and is able to detect what is happening in the rooms: if the person is sleeping, moving, leaving their home”, explains Kaeven Martin, president of Evey Innovation.
Doing some prevention
More so, Evey analyzes the habits of the person. This allows, for example, to warn the staff of the residence if a resident falls, stays much longer than usual in the bathroom, or even if his gait has changed due to hip problems.
For the general manager, it went without saying to test this intelligent system, which makes it possible to electrically connect devices, in his residence.
“What I like is that the elder doesn’t need to interact with the technology, it’s all around him and it’s analyzing the situation. He just needs to live in his apartment, ”rejoices Mr. Buisson.
And after a test in four apartments, nearly 205 units in the new residence were equipped with the system designed in Quebec.
Photo QMI Agency, Martin Alarie
Resident Raymond Bertrand, who uses technology.
Security
For residents, these technologies provide a real sense of security, says Raymond Bertrand, who has lived there since October.
“It’s so effective that when a plumber visited a resident, the alarm went off because the system saw him lying on the ground,” he explains with a laugh.
“It is sure that we feel much safer,” he adds.
On the RPA side too, Evey is changing habits.
“As the system is able to see if people are active, it allows us, for example, to save time every day. Before, it took us an hour and a half to call each resident to check if they were okay. Now, Evey does it for us,” says Sébastien Buisson.
A very useful technology
The newspaper tested the Evey technology present in more than 200 apartments in the Habitations Bordeleau residence in St-Charles-Borromée.
Falls
As soon as a person falls, the Evey device performs an analysis to verify that it is indeed a human movement. If the person does not get up, the tablet indicates aloud to be “sending an alert” to the employees of the residence which arrives a few minutes later.
Abnormal behaviors
Evey will also notify staff if it detects abnormal behavior, says Kaeven Martin, president of Evey Innovation.
If a person usually spends 30 minutes in their bathroom and one day they spend an hour or more there, the system will be able to detect abnormal behavior and send an alert, says the president of the start-up.
But this also applies to the change of gait for example.
The electronic system would be able to detect if the person walks differently, and therefore potentially warn the staff to then do a health follow-up, explains Mr. Martin.
Flood
The technology is also able to detect water damage, thanks to sensors positioned behind the toilet or under the kitchen sink.
After only a few seconds in contact with water, the detector rings and sends an alert to the staff of the residence for the elderly.
Energy
As for Habitations Bordeleau, the smart assistant also makes it possible to make significant energy savings, in particular because it makes it possible to cut off the electricity in the apartments when their inhabitants leave.
A research center for technologies for seniors
The Lanaudière region wants to create the first francophone research center on technologies aimed at improving the daily lives of seniors.
“We want to position ourselves as the place where the new technologies of tomorrow for aging will be tested and innovated,” says Nicolas Framery, general manager of the Living Lab Lanaudière (LLL), created by the MRC’s Economic Development Corporation. of Joliette (CDÉJ).
The small town of Saint-Charles-Borromée, in Lanaudière, has the distinction of being the one with the highest rate of residents over 85 years old.
So for the players in the community, it was important to find solutions to help the region’s seniors who show what the demography of Quebec could look like in ten years.
The LLL therefore facilitates contact between new technology companies and companies that may need their inventions.
Elders at Heart
The project is a living laboratory in the sense that seniors remain at the heart of the project by actively participating since they are the ones who test and who can give feedback to improve the system.
“It’s really a system where everyone talks to each other, to improve and perfect the technologies so that they best meet the real needs of the people who use them,” explains Mr. Framery.
Research Center
In addition, nine researchers from the University of Quebec at Trois-Rivières (UQTR) will be able to evaluate the gerontechnologies, in particular used at Habitations Bordeleau.
“Our project is really to see how technology can support seniors in general. We will be able to evaluate them,” says Marie-Michèle Lord, professor and researcher at UQTR.
The research project also received an $800,000 grant from the Fonds de recherche du Québec en santé to begin evaluating technologies and implementing solutions.