Vital Signs (Aired 09-04-25)The Future of Senior Care: Scott Mendell on Tech, Longevity Innovation

[00:00:00] Speaker A: SA. [00:00:30] Speaker B: Welcome back to Vital Signs, where we explore the future of health, wellness and all things. Your greatest asset, your health. I'm your host, Jen Goday. And today we are joined again by Scott Mendel, a passionate leader in redefining senior care. As technology and longevity science advance, the way we care for older adults must also evolve. Today we're going to dive deep and explore what's the next chapter of senior care, what does that look like and how you can be a part of that change. I'm really excited to have Scott here because he is truly reimagining senior care of the future. Welcome back to the show, Scott. [00:01:06] Speaker A: Thank you, ma'. Am. It's good to see you again. [00:01:08] Speaker B: Absolutely. So, Scott, you have been a very powerful voice in transforming senior care. What do you see as the biggest shift happening right now? [00:01:19] Speaker A: The biggest shift is going to be technology. There's absolutely no doubt with some of the new innovations in neuroplasticity and how virtual reality and augmented reality and AI are going to affect that space is limitless. It's going to be really spectacular. [00:01:35] Speaker B: You know, I'm really excited about a lot of the things in the longevity space. We've had quite a few guests on to talk about innovation. And you know, what was suggested just a couple episodes ago is within the next 18 months, we may be able to live to 150, 180. That completely changes everything that we think about, about our lifespan and our health span and quality of life. So we're still kind of stuck in the space where most consumers, most people still imagine senior care as a facility, a SNF facility, or as a home health care nurse. How are you expanding that vision and what do you see coming down the pipes? [00:02:12] Speaker A: Yeah, so SNF being skilled nursing facility and all of the other F words, the facilities that I just can't stand. I think what you're going to see is more home based care and more community based care. And what I mean by communities is no longer you going to be isolated in a facility that's separated from everybody else. You feel like you've been abandoned. Where what I'm building and what I think you'll see of the future is more neighborhood based, where it's a neighborhood home that's been remodeled to house probably no more than 10 people. So that they feel like a family, that they interact with the neighbors still, they still feel like they have some purpose, they have connection, they have the socialization that's really necessary for what's going to be going on in the world. Of senior care. And it all starts, I mean, the number one killer of our seniors right now is depression. And so if we can eliminate depression by adding in socialization, purpose, lifestyle, then we can truly develop the first step toward redefining senior care. [00:03:26] Speaker B: And really what you're talking about is quality of life because it's taking the clinical aspect of it out. Traditional facilities are very, they feel like hospitals, they feel very clinical, very cold. And what you're suggesting is more like a little bit of an expanded residential. I think almost like a family compound sort of comes to mind. [00:03:45] Speaker A: It is. I'd lose the word compound, but yes, it's definitely family based. And the kitchen and dining room will be the gathering spots. We'll have really beautiful backyards. We're developing our first memory care right now. I just had a meeting this morning with our architects and it is, it's going to be spectacular. It's built in a, a. I guess the best way to describe it would be an early colonial style mansion that was built in 1916 and we're going to expand the footprint by about double and it's going to be spectacular and it will feel like a home rather than a facility that will be decorated like a home, it'll be outfitted like a home. The only difference being that there's a multitude of people living in there. Think of it like a family that has like eight kids, right? And so they all live together, they all eat together, they do their exercises together, they're pt, OT and st, physical, occupational and speech therapy. And so as that family unit, when they get together with our gamification style stuff, then they'll be able to compete as teams, compete with each other, win prizes, get to go on outings together. So it'll be really unique. And that's just really the first step towards what we're going to do to revolutionize senior care. [00:05:18] Speaker B: You know, I feel like expectations are changing as baby boomers and Gen Xers, we're sort of re changing and reshaping what compassionate care actually looks like because we are dealing, we're kind of the sandwich generation. We're caring for our parents, we're caring for, for our elders, and we're also sort of caring for our youngers. And as we look at what we're dealing with, we don't want that for ourselves or for our loved ones. So I know you have personal, very personal stories that have sort of elicited this change for you and this vision for you. Can you talk to us a little bit about your personal experiences? With senior care and how that has shaped your vision of the future. [00:06:00] Speaker A: Yeah, so I was taking care of my dad for, like, 10 years, and he passed away a year and a half ago now. And when I first started working with him, everything was good. He was still fairly independent. You know, it might be a trip to the doctor here or take him to the ball game or to the movies, to dinner, things like that, just keeping him active. And then his health started going downhill, and it became much more of a caregiving role rather than, hey, you're my friend, you're my buddy. Let's go have dinner. And as it continued to slide down, it dawned on me that at some point, I might need to have him placed somewhere. And it's a horrifying thought because I know my dad wouldn't want to do it. And so I started looking around for somewhere that he might like to go, or I might like to go, for that matter. And there was nothing out there. Nothing at all. And so as I. As I explored the options, man, I found places that feed people on $2 a day or less. And I found one that did it for 87 cents a day. And how did you feed somebody on 87 cents a day and at least have any kind of nutritional value at all? So I decided that there was a problem here and it needed to be fixed. Apparently, nobody was going to do it. So I decided to try and revolutionize senior care. The other one that as I got into this, more people came to me with their stories. And a good friend of ours and an older couple, she ended up going in for knee surgery. And I'll never forget this. We were actually at the Star of Hope foundation gala, a very Christian organization. Christian singer on stage. And the photo arrived on my phone of her knee at the skilled nursing facility. And I cannot repeat the expletive I used on tv. And I shouldn't have used it there, but it was such a shock that I'm sitting at a table with a bunch of CEOs and high powered lawyers, and right in the middle of the song, I just blurted out the expletive and everybody at the table kind of turned and looked at me. [00:08:28] Speaker B: I'm sure they did. [00:08:29] Speaker A: I am so sorry. I will show you what set that off as soon as the song is over. And I'm probably gonna need your help. And so what had happened was I was sent a picture. She had had a knee replacement surgery. And I was sent a picture of her knee. And there were three open, gaping wounds that were. And I have a Biomedical science degree. And so I know what I'm looking at. And it was gangrenous. I mean, you could see it. It was terrible. And when we finally got done with that night, the next day we called the skilled nursing facility. I had my legal team call them and say, hey, this is not acceptable. And if you don't get this fixed right away, then lawsuits will follow and we'll get you shut down. And she ended up having to go back into the hospital. Now, the skilled nursing facility claimed that they were cleaning the wound every day and changing the dressing, and the dressing looked like it had been changed. But I'm sorry, you cannot clean a wound and have it go gangrenous. Mean, it'd been three or four weeks minimum that that wound hadn't been touched, rather than just changing the bandage that was on the knee. So she ended up having to go back in and having a new. And this was interesting because I thought she would lose the leg. But they cleaned off the wound and they put a new knee in that was impregnated with antibiotics to try and treat everything that had gotten infected. Unfortunately, she never recovered from it. And in the end, it can. It either did or heavily contributed to her death just because of that. [00:10:13] Speaker B: It's not an uncommon story to hear. And so between these two things, and I apologize, I'm gonna have to cut this, and we'll have to continue after the break because we are getting pretty close. But it's not an uncommon thing for this to occur. I mean, I was a physical therapist for many, many years. And, you know, you know, and I've helped with my grandparents and such as well in caregiving. And it's unfortunate that sometimes if you don't have family advocating in the current system for you and constantly being there and stepping up, those who don't have that knowledge or know how to advocate for themselves and their loved ones tend to slip between the cracks, unfortunately, in the way that we're caring. And so I really can't wait to dive into what you are doing as a result of these and what you have envisioned so that we can start to give advice to the people watching how they can better advocate for their families. We do have to take a brief break, folks, but you're not going to want to touch that dial because what's next is exactly what you can do to advocate for your loved ones or prepare for yourself when you're looking at senior care. We will be right back after these important mess. Welcome back to Vital Signs. If you're just tuning in you're going to want to go to NowMedia TV, click on Vital Signs and catch the first part of today's show. It has been absolutely amazing. You can watch it anytime, anywhere, in podcast, best format, or you can choose to download the Now Media TV app from iOS or your Roku. We would love to have you watch any of your shows on demand, where you are, when, when you want, in whatever format that you desire. But we are going to shift right back into the conversation that we were having before the break. We were talking with Scott Mendel, who is literally transforming senior care and reimagining what care for our elders looks like. And he was sharing some very personal stories that sort of influenced his vision. So I'm going to dive right back into that. Scott, you had a couple of different stories and that has provided the impetus for you to sort of dive into this and tackle this problem. Because as entrepreneurs, that's part of what we do. Right. We solve big problems. And as people who really care about other human beings, how we impact them a lot of times does come from a story story such as what you shared. So how did those experiences shape your vision and kind of expand on what your vision is as we move forward? [00:13:13] Speaker A: Yeah, so it's an interesting deal in this field that we're in. Everybody I've met has the entire reason they're in the field is because they've been touched by it. And we all get touched by it at some point, if we're lucky and our parents live long enough to age out. I lost my mom very young, so I understand both sides of it. But seeing what was out there, knowing that if I put my dad in anything like our friend ended up in or any kind of facility, I knew he'd be dead by his own hand or by the lack of care probably within three weeks. And so it became part of my mission to build something that he would want to live in, that I would want to live in that would be fun and acceptable and not so overwhelming that it made him feel like he was just part of a machine. Right. So that it wasn't like so many of them out there right now are multi floor, multi floor and have one caregiver per floor and anywhere from 25 to 50 clients living on that floor, which means there's so little care available. I wanted it to be a place where if you needed help, you got it immediately. We'll have one caregiver to four. The ratio in all of our places, our homes, so that there's always somebody available if you need it. So if we have one person that is having trouble and needs help, and it may take that caregiver an hour to get that situation solved, we got two more ready to go. And through the analytics, we found out that it's very rare that you have more than two people that have a significant need at the time. So that gives us two caregivers that can be involved in the need, and then one that's still free to work with, to play with, to engage with our other clients at the time. So doing this, I wanted to not only create, and yes, it started with just the wellness home, which is our. It's the next evolution of senior living. Right. It's not just an assisted living, which is really assisted death today more than anything else, ours had a focus on on improving your independence, on improving your overall attitude towards life, on improving your memory, your cognitive and digital dexterity. So when you walked into our home, it was, oh, Ms. Ellie, welcome to our home. We're going to do everything we can to get you back to your own home or your own family as soon as possible. So ours was really just a place where you came to get better, then out to your own home. And when I realized that if we sent them back out, we would need to support them in their own home or they'd come right back, then that led to the vertical integration that I'm completing now, which is from first day of need to last day of life. Red Bear Care will be your family. We will be there when you need us, from literally the first day until we help you onto the next journey. [00:16:31] Speaker B: And, you know, I'm going to dive into how technology and innovation in medicine has changed shortly. But for those who are watching, I'm really curious, what advice do you have for families navigating these care options right now who want more than the status quo? Sort of like you did with your father, like, what should they be thinking about? How should they be approaching this? Or even if we want to start planning for our own selves, if we're in that. In that sort of transition phase to make sure that we have that plan and we have that discussion with our family in advance. [00:17:03] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm actually going to be publishing a book here in the next month or two. It's called the Silent Sacrifice. It's the. It explains what the hidden cost of being a family caregiver is and what you need to do to kind of prepare. It's a guidebook that I wish I'd had when I was taking care of my dad. Because I made so many mistakes and the guilt of those mistakes stays with me daily. And I want to try and end that child guilt. And so that'll be available on Amazon and everywhere else. It's the Silent Sacrifice. [00:17:37] Speaker B: So I'm going to pause you right there. If you're listening to this, follow Scott. Scott Mendel, Follow him because you will know when his book comes out. Because the reality is there's not enough resources for caregivers when we're caregiving for our family. And I concur with you. I think it's a very important message that needs to get out. So if you follow him on social, then you will see when he does do that book release and maybe we'll have you back at that point in time. [00:18:03] Speaker A: Yeah, you can. And you can find me and Red Bear Care on Instagram, on LinkedIn, on Facebook. We're on all three for sure. It's pretty easy to find us. And you can go to our website, which is up right now, and at some point we'll have a link to the book right there. We're going to actually be every family that uses us will get a copy of that for free, whether it's respite care, home care, home health, whatever. We're going to provide it as a guidebook to all of our families. And if you watch closely, when we launch, it'll actually be we're going to run a special and for a short period of time, you'll be able to get it for 99 cents, where normally it'll be like $24.95 or something like that. So the book is designed to take that first step towards really revolutionizing senior care because it starts with the family caregiver, because that's where we all start in this journey, is we start out caring for somebody that we truly love, that we don't want to have to put in a facility. We want them to be taken care of better. And we all think we're Superman. We all think we can do it. And what you find out quickly is you can't. When your loved one gets to a point where they need help either 12 to 24 hours a day and you try and do it yourself, it will break you. I don't care. I'm one of the toughest human beings on the planet, and it broke me. And the reason is because in the last 17 days before I reached out and got care, I was allowed to get 30 hours of sleep total because of my dad's need, constant need. And I beg all of you don't let it get you there. Reach out and get help the minute you think you need help, five minutes before you actually needed it or after you actually needed it. So reach out, definitely go get it. But what we're designing now, technology wise, will help a lot of that need. So we're designing six AIs currently that will. The biggest one is going to end therapist burnout from the get go. So we're going to allow physical therapists, occupational therapist, speech therapist to do what they want to do, which is take care of patients. There's not going to be any more transcription, there's not going to be any more coding. It's all going to be done. All they have to do is treat patients. And what we know is as you as a physical therapist, if you get to do nothing but what you really went to school to do, what you love to do, which is help patients get better, then you're going to enjoy. [00:20:38] Speaker B: Your job more and you're going to have better outcomes. [00:20:41] Speaker A: Well, and that leads. If you enjoy your job more, then your patients are likely to be having a better time in their therapy, which means that they will probably do their therapy more often and enjoy it more. And if they're enjoying it more and doing it more often, they are going to have better outcomes, which means immediately we've revolutionized senior care. [00:20:59] Speaker B: That's absolutely right. And it's. And the way that you're talking about this, you're giving them back time. [00:21:04] Speaker A: Yes. [00:21:04] Speaker B: And it's time that when I retired, and I retired PT in 2017, but when I retired, it was a turn. You were having to see three, four people per hour. You have to move people through the system. And even in senior care, like we had group, we had groups for everything for the bulk of what we were doing because we just had too many people to care for. Then we had hands and hours in a day. And the reality is that continues to be a challenge. Whether we're talking about nursing or we're talking about therapy, it doesn't matter. There's not enough caregivers for the aging population. And that is a reality. We are going to have to take a brief break and I really want to dive deeper into the technology behind this, but I want to kind of let everyone know, like, this is, this is a reality. Our population is aging. And what Scott said earlier was if you find yourself in a caregiver situation, I would suggest that the moment you are in a caregiver situation for your family, that's the moment to start looking for help because it is a tremendous toll on you, on the rest of your family, on any other roles that you have. And we cannot take care of our loved ones to the best of our ability if we're not taking care of ourselves first. And inevitably, that's what declines. And save yourself the hassle. So definitely follow Scott. Scott Mendel on all of the socials Red Bear Care on all of the socials and watch for his book because that will give you a resource and that you can use when you're caregiving, but also to plan for your caregiving needs. Because the reality is, if we're lucky enough, there may come a day when we have to educate our family on this as well. We do have to take a brief break, but when we come back, we're going to dive deep into what's changing the technology and how that's improving our senior care after these important messages. Welcome back to Vital signs. I'm Jen Goday, and I'm here with our expert of the day in senior care, Scott Mendel. From we're entering an era where artificial intelligence and biotechnology aren't replacing caregivers. They're empowering them to be more human than ever, to take better care, have more time to do what they need to do in order to help our seniors with their care, in order to get them better. So I want to dive into the game changers. I want to talk about AI. I want to talk about remote care technology. I want to talk about longevity breakthroughs and things that are really reimagining how we age and how we care about. This isn't the future, folks. It's already here. Personalized care is a thing of the present. The things that we thought were science fiction are happening now. And Scott, I really want to dive into this because let's talk about AI and senior care. We sort of started that conversation before the break, but talk about how it's improving senior care in real time. Today we started with let's get our caregivers instead of documentation and all the other things that are taking them away from our seniors. Hands on with our seniors. What else is working today? What are you seeing in the space? [00:24:27] Speaker A: So this is where I get really excited, right? Because and I haven't been as excited about anything I've worked on in a long time as I am in this artificial intelligence space. And so many people are afraid of it. It's going to take my job. It's going to be, oh, my God, it's going to turn into Skynet and it's going to kill the world. But AI is really a complementary tool. It's not a replacement tool. Yes, it's going to eliminate some jobs, but at the same time, the Bureau of Labor and Statistics has showed that it's going to create many more jobs than it's going to eliminate jobs that. [00:25:02] Speaker B: We haven't even imagined yet, Right? [00:25:04] Speaker A: And it's like, if you look at any of the leaps that mankind makes, what's happened about every five years, right? So when travel went from carts and wagons to trains, everybody's like, oh, my God. And then when farming went from people working in the fields to mechanical implementation, everybody's like, oh, my God. And then they found out that the mechanical implementation led to like three times the number of jobs that there were originally. Computers did the same thing, Right? I can still remember in my lifetime when everybody said, oh my God, I'm going to lose my job. Computers are going to take over the world. They did, but it created so many more jobs. This is the exact same space. So it's not a replacement, it's a complementary deal. What we're building with the therapy AI isn't to replace therapists. You cannot right now replace a therapist. It's impossible. But what it will allow us to do is give time back to those therapists where the average. And you can probably speak to this as well, when you're done at the end of your day with your patients, you got two and a half hours of notes that you have to go through. That's why most therapists are quitting. They hate doing. They don't want to be a secretary. They don't want to have to do all that transcription. And so what we're going to do is we're going to give them back that two and a half hours a day. If they just work five days a week and most work six, then you're talking, what, 10, 12 and a half hours a week. If you add on the weekend, that's 15 hours a week that they get back in their life, which if they can use that to do whatever they want to do, they're so much happier. They can spend it with their families and they can spend it relaxing. They can work on hobbies, they can. [00:26:47] Speaker B: Take care of their own health and bodies, which our caregivers are not doing. [00:26:50] Speaker A: At this point in time. Yes, absolutely. There's a lot of studies out there that family caregivers are more apt to be depressed, they're more apt to be unhealthy, they're more apt to take their loved one to their doctor's appointment and skip their own. [00:27:03] Speaker B: That's right. [00:27:04] Speaker A: And so yes, in the space that we're working in, we're going to try and give back time to everybody. And AI can do that. The only we won't be able to replace caregivers until we can get a robot that can move and feel and sense exactly like a human being can. And minimum, that's 10 years away. I'm betting it's probably going to be a little bit further. But for us, the six that we're building is the therapist. And it doesn't just work with therapists, it works with home health companies too. We're going to be able to where the government is constantly decreasing the margins of payback in home health, we're going to increase the margins that home care companies and home health companies make. We're going to give them back room. So when you were talking about the grind, right, of going through that, think about if you didn't have to do those notes at the end of the day and you don't have to grind quite as hard now, but you can still see more patients in a day, right? So instead of three or four an hour and saving that two and a half hours at the end of the day, now you can spread the patience out over that extra time, right? And then when you go home, you don't have to work on notes, you don't have to transcribe in the car on the drive, you don't have to get it home and sit on your computer. You can actually spend it going to the gym for yourself, with your family, with your kids, with your pets, you know, going for a walk. It's so revolutionary. It's even hard to think about, right, because you have to be able to be forward thinking to see the difference that it can make in the world. It's like man discovering fire. The impact that AI is going to have on our world is so significant. I mean it's going to be something, I would say it's a once in half a cent, half a millennia thing that's going to happen right now and right in front of us. It was like learning how to fly. We went from literally the first flight ever taken in 1916. I think that's right where Wilbur, Wilbur and Orville flew 150 yards or something like that to landing on the moon in 1969. I mean 53 years and, and it changed the world. The way the world worked, the way the world move, it got much smaller. Now we're going to have this kind of space where we can literally give time back to people. It's like, it sounds funny to say it's a time machine, but it kind of is, right? Because it creates that space where we get to choose what we want to do with so much more of our life. Because now we've got this complimentary partner beside us doing so many of the transactional things that most of us hate doing. And if it can take that time and give it back to us, I mean, what a miracle. [00:29:57] Speaker B: You're absolutely right. [00:29:58] Speaker A: Especially as a caregiver where you've got no time at all. [00:30:01] Speaker B: So we've talked about the therapist aspect of it, but technology is also going to help families to stay connected more to monitor health, more to prevent emergencies before they even occur. We know that there's technology out there that's, you know, real time data in wearables that are pinging physicians so that they can say, oh, hey, you better get mom to the doctor immediately or to the hospital immediately, you know, so talk to me a little bit about some of the other things that you're, that you're seeing addition to the care, the PT or therapist. [00:30:30] Speaker A: So you're talking about the space that I started in, right? Because I didn't ever think of designing something like this AI myself. I was looking at all the others because what I wanted to design inside of our homes was a way for the care to be done in a much better fashion. And technology allows our seniors to be monitored in bed. So instead of waiting for that emergency call to go off, where a caregiver is sitting out at a desk at night and somebody's gotten up to go to the bathroom and fallen. Now the technology is there, looking at them, and it's lidar. So there's, there's no invasion of privacy at all. It's a dot matrix, but it sees the patient move in bed, towards the edge of the bed, and it sounds the alarm immediately at the nurse's station going, Mrs. So and so is trying to get out of bed. It would be appropriate for you to go there now. And the caregiver gets up and gets there before the fall happens. And falls are the second leading cause of death. Right. And so the technology is so good. Now there's smart toilets that can detect infections two weeks before symptoms show there. There's safe flooring that has been proven to reduce fractures and breaks by 50%. If you put those in, there's like this right here. The Apple Watch alerts you if you have a low or slow heart rate or if your heart rate goes too high or if you're an afib. The technology is moving forward so fast to let us know what's coming, that, yeah, it's going to do what I want to do, which is extend our lives, but also if we can pair together the idea of not just extending life, but making it a productive life where it's still. Where you're still able to function like I am today. I don't want to be 100 years old and stuck in a home. I want to be 100 years old and be Dick Van Dyke or 92 years old and going to space like William Shatner. And I just had the chance to meet Bill and my God, what an amazing man. 94 years old now and still doing Star Trek conventions. I mean, it's just, it's extraordinary to watch him. Dick Van Dyke still dances every day with his wife. Just did a music video with Coldplay. I mean, what, what we can do is unlimited if we just take care of ourselves. And those two guys are perfect examples of not stopping, right? They dance every day. Bill rides his horses for three or four hours every morning. At 94 years old, I mean, it's amazing. But the fact that he's active, I think is what's contributing to his health. And so I think we can give that to everybody. And like you said, there are studies out there that have now shown that if we can live to be like to the year 2030, we can all live to 150, depending on how the biohacking revolution actually progresses. And so as AI comes into the fold with that, I think you're going to see that space progress even faster. Right, where we can use all these new kind of therapies to evaluate the body frequency therapy, sound therapy, water, there, all this kind of stuff that can show us what's going on before it becomes a problem. Because the only thing that kills us is a problem. [00:33:58] Speaker B: That's exactly right. We do have to take a brief break, but I want to make sure that everybody who's watching, like, start thinking about this. If you're in a situation where you're looking for care for your seniors, explore tech enabled care. Ask the providers about smart sensors, about remote monitoring, about AI enhanced management tools and virtual wellness. Think about what is happening and what's out there and advocate for yourself or your loved ones. So, Scott, I really appreciate this conversation. I really want people to learn more about Red Bear Careand CareIntel AI. We've already talked about your book, the Silent Sacrifice that's coming down, down the down the pipes. But we're going to dive into that right after these breaks because as we extend life, let's not forget to expand quality of life. Tech can do amazing things, but it's the heart behind it that really matters. It's compassion plus innovation that's the future of care. Stay curious and stay empowered. We will be right back as we dive deeper into this after these important messages. Welcome back to Vital Signs. Loving what you're watching? You're not going to want to miss a moment of it. Download our Now Media TV app on Roku and iOS and catch your favorite programming 24. 7, no matter where you are. Also, if you're interested in the podcast version, you know you can go to NowMedia TV, click on shows, go to Vital Signs and catch any of the prior episodes as well as any of your favorite shows on NOW Media tv. Ready for you wherever you are. We are going to dive right back into our conversation. We ended the last segment talking about how technology isn't replacing caregivers, it's actually giving them superpowers. So what I really want to do is flip the lens and focus on those unsung hero heroes, the caregivers, the healthcare providers. Because as tech and AI enter senior care space, they're not just streamlining systems, they're reducing burnout, improving decision making, and restoring time for what matters most, that human connection. With Scott Mendel here to walk us through the impact, we're going to talk a little bit more about how technology is transforming caregiving from the inside out. Scott, we've talked about how tech benefits patients. We've talked a little bit about how it benefits caregivers. What is technology unlocking for the family, caregivers and for some of the other people in this equation. [00:36:48] Speaker A: So the great thing that one of the things we're building is an AI that will allow these families to ask the questions that they need to be asked and get the answers that they need. How to do this? My parent is doing this. What should I do? And to give them the tools readily available just on their phone and all they have to do is ask. They can still be doing their caregiving. Set their phone aside and it's a voice talking to you. It's an actual human voice speaking to you, telling you, look, your parent is time shifting. Time shifting is where they truly understand or believe that they are in a different time period like 1945, 1950. And what you can't do is try and physically drag them back into our time so what the AI would do is say, I understand your parent is having a moment, they're living in their past. The best thing you can possibly do is exist right there with them, ask them to tell you about whatever memory they're in, ask them what they're doing, why it's so important to them and let them exist there and then tell them, you know, like my dad would ask for his mom and for the longest time I would tell him, well, your mom died. And that's just so wrong because in that moment he still thinks she is alive. And so it crushes him when all I need to do is say, hey, you know, your mom is a world class bridge player. She's out playing bridge right now. She'll be home in three or four hours. So in the meantime let's just listen to the radio again. TV wasn't around, so radio and TV today kind of equated for him. And in three or four hours he's back to where he should be or in another state. We don't have to worry about mom anymore and I don't have to hurt him by telling him he just lost his mom. So having that ability or you know, ask about wound care or hey, there's a red spot that just showed up on my, on my parents knee. What is this? And you know you'll be able to, doctors will be with telemedicine. Now you can send a photo of that to your family caregiver or your family primary caregiver and primary physician. God, I'm getting lost in the words. And they'll be able to respond immediately. Hey, that's the beginning of a pressure ulcer or hey, that looks like a spider bite or whatever it is, right? And you'll know so much quicker than you used to be able to. So I think this is a complimentary space where we're going to take some of the burden away, some of the fear, some of the anxiety. [00:39:17] Speaker B: And it's so much better than going to Dr. Google and trying to guess as a caregiver, as a pt. That was one of my pet peeves because we try to self diagnose so many times and just because information is out there doesn't mean that it's accurate. But now with AI it's really, it's really kind of exciting because when you think about the telemedicine aspect when you can take a photograph, well they have AI enhancement tools that they can look at and so they can make a more accurate diagnosis than ever before. And not only that, AI has Every piece of knowledge right there at your fingertips. And so if they could bring to you all of the studies, you can make a more informed decision about care. So it's such an amazing tool that's not replacing us, but making us better at the things that we do so that we are elevating our level of care. So let me ask you, what do you say to the caregivers or clinics who are really hesitant about adopting the technology because they're worried that it's going to be cold, it's going to be complicated, it's going to be costly, or maybe it's going to be a compliance issue. [00:40:21] Speaker A: Yeah. So, I mean, there's a lot of problem like with, if you just go to the AIs that are out there right now, chat GPT, Grok, Anthropic or Gemini on Google, you it, it's still such an infant, Right. It's still so young that it does make mistakes because it doesn't know exactly. It hasn't been trained on the question you're looking for. So as we build these AIs that we're building, they're actually trained to answer specific questions and have been told not to go outside of their knowledge. Don't go search Google and try and find the answer on WebMD. You know, stay in, in the lane that you've been trained in. If you cannot answer it, tell them to call their physician. Right? Because we don't want those mistakes. We can't afford those mistakes. It's not good. But as we move down this road and they become more educated than become faster and they become like dedicated in certain spaces, I think you're going to see a revolution in not only the physicians, right. With their ability to diagnose on the spot by having an AI in their office, but at home. Right. The AI can actually then start reaching out to the physician's AI and saying, hey, look, this is what's been found in all these other cases. This wound matches exactly. Here's how it's been treated. Call your physician, get this prescription or get their advice on a prescription. I think it's really going to be time machine. It's going to give us back so much time, the space. We're also going to be able to help our family caregivers and our own caregivers. Right. In my company, the caregivers that go out and help family caregivers with their own lives. Right. Because like in the book, what you'll find out in my book is one of the chapters is all about financing because people don't understand when you get into family caregiving, the costs are extraordinary. And it's not just that you got to buy adult undergarments or you have to buy extra bandages, or you have to buy this and you have to buy that. The bed that doesn't, you know, create bed sores. And it's also the fact that you got to back off your job. You know, you may start losing time at work because you're required to be at home. 25% of family caregivers actually remove themselves from the workforce because they try and do that 24 7, like I did. And when you lose that paycheck, you start losing your own identity. Right. You're no longer the provider. Now you're again trying to rely on somebody else. And it can be really devastating mentally, not for the family member, but for the caregiver. [00:43:00] Speaker B: That's right. [00:43:01] Speaker A: And even our caregivers have the same problem. So we're training an AI right now to help with. With how they live their lives, with what questions they have about their own lives, finances. Like, how do I save this amount of money when I'm only making this amount of money? Or I need to make this decision about insurance. Can you help me with that? And it will have answers. We've got a friend of ours that's actually building the first insurance AI out there. He's launched it recently. [00:43:28] Speaker B: We've actually talked about it on the show. [00:43:30] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so it's already there. Right. And so as we attach all these things to ours, it's going to be. It will hopefully solve the issues that I faced while I was caring for my dad. [00:43:46] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, and it's so. It's so important that we take care of our caregivers. I mean, I've spoken. I wrote a book on boundaries in 2019 and spoke all over the world for practitioners, healthcare practitioners, and family caregivers because of this exact thing. And quite frankly, caregivers, as family caregivers, we just don't know what resources are out there for us. It's so important that we are not doing this alone. So, folks, if you're listening, if you're watching, don't do this alone. If you are a family caregiver, do not do this alone. Reach out. Reach out to Scott. Scott is a wealth of information. Scott, this has been so incredibly valuable for everyone. Where can people follow your work and continue this conversation or learn more or reach out. [00:44:23] Speaker A: Okay, so the book the Silent Sacrifice will actually have a list of resources for caregivers to reach out to and get help and possibly even pay. There are some states that will pay family caregivers. So once the book is launched, which should be in the next two months, the Silent Sacrifice, it will be online, it will be on our website, it'll be on Amazon.com and you'll be able to find that. And if you want to follow me, you can find our [email protected] you can follow me at Scott Mendel on LinkedIn, on Instagram, on Facebook and you can reach out by calling our company if you want to. The telephone number is right there on the top of our website. So if you're desperate and you need help, call. That's why I'm here. It's I want to end the drama that comes with family caregiving if I can. [00:45:12] Speaker B: Thank you so much for everything that you've brought to us today. The best care doesn't come from machines, folks. It comes from people who are empowered by machines. AI and automation are not taking over. They're helping caregivers focus on what matters most. Presence, peace of mind, personalized attention, really quality care and the future of caregiving. It's tech backed, but heart led. Scott, thank you so much for joining us on Vital Signs. We've explored how senior care is being reimagined from rethinking what care looks like to merging technology with compassion to empowering the people who provide it for everyone. Watching the takeaway is care is not just a system, it's a value. Each of us has a role in shaping how our families and communities age with dignity and compassion. You know that every show ends with what is your takeaway? Well, I encourage you to reach out to Red Bear Care. Follow Scott. Pick up his book when you get it because even if you're not caregiving right now, this is a reality that we may face or someone that we love will face. So it's really important to stay plugged in. Grab his book when it comes out. It will be filled with resources and he was so gracious to give us so much of our time. Thank you so much. Unfortunately, all good things come to an end, including this show, but the good news is we'll be here same time, same station next week. Until then, have an amazing rest of your day.