Ecumen sees technology as essential to enhancing the aging experience wherever people choose to call home.

Ecumen was one of the country’s first senior services providers to broadly introduce QuietCare in its housing communities.  QuietCare by GE Healthcare is a proactive and unobtrusive motion sensor technology that can help identify small health problems before they grow larger.  Other technologies Ecumen incorporates include [m]Power cognitive fitness technology; Nintendo’s Wii technology for rehabilitation and just plain fun; CareTracker e-charting; and Ivivi Sof-Pulse for wound care.

Let’s zoom in on a weekday afternoon to a computer lab at Ecumen’s Lakeview Commons community in Maplewood, Minnesota, where a resident is logging on to a touch‐screen computer to exercise her brain – and have fun.

“It rates us in various categories,” explains Honor Hacker as she challenges her brain with a computer program that tests abilities in math, geography, music, vocabulary, spatial relationships, instant recall and more.  Honor has spoken before members of Congress on the benefits of technology in empowering America’s seniors.

The program by Dakim called (m)Power, is as entertaining as it is good for brain, she says. Fill‐in‐the‐word games, real‐life math challenges and other puzzlers mix with colorful visuals and rapidly shifting tasks to keep her eyes riveted on the screen. “I use it every day,” says Hacker, a retired high‐school social studies teacher. “It’s fun.”

Ecumen is “on the forefront,” says George Mason University instructor Andrew Carle, nationally known for coining the term “nana technology” to identify innovations that improve seniors’ quality of life. 

Technology is an integral part of people’s lifestyle and that will only increase.  Technology supports the themes that are important to all of us: independence, choice, mobility, ease, and quality of life.