My Thoughts on L.E.A.F

Earlier this year I had my grandfather die from a stroke, and during his last two or three weeks of life, the quality of his existence was solely dependent on those caring for him, meaning his family and the professional caretakers. Everyone’s issues with the professional caretakers were that they were quite impersonal, treating Grandpa as an object rather than human. They would come in his room once, and not make another appearance for another 18 hours. They talked on the phone and joked around. The latter is fine at the appropriate times; however play should have come after work, after they had already met Grandpa’s needs. There was not much anyone in the family could do about this, aside from complain to the doctors or try to supplement Grandpa’s lack of quality care with sentimental statements, telling him that we were there if he needed anything and sharing memories. Honestly though, this only went so far due to everyone’s conflicting schedules and conflicting views about how he should have been cared for. For instance, one of my aunts spoke with the doctor and banned anyone else in the family, besides herself or my grandma, from visiting Grandpa after a certain time. This meant that unless my aunt decided to stay the night, we were right back at square one, meaning that grandpa had no one to keep him company for long hours. Even during the day, when he had several people keep him company, certain family members caused strife arguing amongst themselves, debating what steps to take next regarding my grandpa’s health or blaming each other for his worsening condition. One person would walk into the room and say something like “Hey play this classical cd; it’ll stimulate his mind and calm him,” while ten minutes later, another relative would walk in and say “What are y’all doing? What’s wrong with y’all? Turn all that stuff off. He needs to rest.”

In spite of all these examples, I am not angry at anyone, because I understand that seeing a loved one in such a heavily-sedated state and not being able to truly help is a painful thing to deal with. Since everyone had to care for Grandpa’s needs on top of the everyday stressors of life, I imagine that they were all thinking on their feet, which led to the lack of coordination. All of that said, I love the inspiration behind “Love Effects a Future [sic].” I think this app is especially useful for people who do not have, do not trust, or cannot afford licensed, trained caretakers and thus rely on their own skills to care for loved ones.  LEAF would hopefully make family members’ responsibilities a bit less intimidating and a bit more manageable. My favorite feature on the app was the virtual medicine planner because with the physical ones, it can be hard to actually keep up and stay on track with certain medicines, or they can get lost or even placed into the wrong date and time due to, say, exhaustion from the person stocking the medicine.  The idea behind the app was quite sad, but very moving, so good job Wenting and Amy, if you guys ever read this.  Also the app itself was very sophisticated and I can tell a lot of thought and planning went into the feature of the app. My only criticism is that this should be less of a social media platform, because those already exist; besides, as we mentioned in class linking this to any social media would breach some sort of medical confidentiality codes, as these sites would ask for permission to view certain aspects of the app, which might include medicine.

About LEAF

Taking in mind all the details that the group had in the presentation, I really started thinking about myself being an old man. It is incredible the statistics about how many people is getting ages around 80 years old, and that these people are most of the population already in some parts of the world. I cannot imagine a whole specie having older people in the society than younger people. This is a problem that the society has because people in general do not want to have families or having children. There are other things that they want to do before being a father or a mother. There are some places where the country pay money for the ones who have children. However, in other places like China you have to pay money for the ones who want to have more than one son or daughter.

I think the presentation was very dynamic because they tried to make us being part of the presentation using different strategies. For example doing games, including the technology for a part of the presentation, and having participants of the class. These things are really good to keep the public always paying attention. I think that this group was the only one who included these kind of things that are really important.

Also, when there is an experience lived about what are you talking about, it is more credible and there is more information about the problems or solutions that other people without the experience would not be available to have that knowledge.

LEAF thoughts

I really loved how this idea is geared towards helping senior citizens. I also especially like how this app is focused on helping our elderly, specifically with dementia. Dementia is a heartbreaking illness that affects many, many families across the world. I am thankful that none of my grandparents have suffered from dementia, and I could not imagine the sorrow it must cause for their loved ones. This illness affects not only the one who is suffering directly, but also those loved ones who are close to this person. LEAF would help ease the pain for everyone involved tremendously. I believe it would help reduce the stressful nature of the illness significantly, since it helps remind those suffering from dementia to take their medication. It also has the feature to allow them to connect with other people. This would help directly with them dealing with loneliness. I know how those suffering from dementia could end up being alienated from the outside world, and I believe this app would help them stay connected with their fellow man. I also think this device would help those family members who care for their loved ones who are suffering from dementia, since they do not have to worry about their family member suffering from dementia not taking their medication. This app is a really great idea, that I think would be greatly successful in helping numerous families and loved ones. I also like how this idea focuses on a class in our society that I think is neglected. I have seen from first hand experience how elderly people are often treated poorly. Many times I feel they are treated as a liability or a lesser-than. This is especially saddening, since our progressive/secular society prides itself upon equality. I feel my generation and those who are young, have a responsibility to care for the older generation. They deserve to be treated with love, care, and respect. I was always raised to respect my elders, and I have seen many of my fellow millennials treat our older generation with disrespect. Which is sad, and this further adds to the notion how my generation is extraordinarily selfish and self-centered.

I'll reiterate that I believe his app is a tremendous idea, that I think would better our society as a whole. Dementia is very scary, and I am glad how this app brings more awareness to the illness and those who are affected from it..