Really? When you put it like that, it makes you stop and think.

Add to that the $7.1 trillion in annual economic activity driven by the needs of Americans aged 50 and over and there’s something to pay attention to. That number is big.

Giant, in fact.

Enormous.

“Think of all the profound social and economic consequences of a society structured like that, with more grandparents than grandchildren,” says Prof Christopher Murray, the director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington in a recent BBC article.
Profound is right. In America, we know that there will be more baby boomers requiring senior services than there will be available caregivers to provide those services.

We also know that adult daughters are the most likely to provide care for their elderly parents. And many of them still have children at home and are working full-time jobs.

The stress is real.

So where is this leading? Most likely to technology. Because technology CAN help. And done right, it is enormously useful to provide communication, fall detection, medication management, care coordination, vital statistics and early health issue detection, and peace of mind for those “sandwich generation” family caregivers.

I’m heading out to Aging 2.0’s Optimize 2018 Conference, where there will be a lot of experts and practitioners talking about this problem and hopefully offering solutions. Stay tuned! I’ll keep you posted.