Big Brother is watching -- at last

It’s the little things.

Like air filters built low, electrical outlets installed high. No steps. Doors wide enough for a wheelchair to pass. Just some of the stuff that should be built into housing for the elderly.

Next on the horizon – remote monitors that alert your cell phone if dad forgot to take his heart medicine, or if nobody has been in the kitchen for a long time, maybe a clue that someone has fallen. Sure, it’s Big Brother. But it is also peace of mind that allows seniors to live at home longer.

Check it out at http://tinyurl.com/59vqjt

At our homes, we are in the sandwich. The three of us are retired and getting older. Gran is 88 and living in her own condo about half a block away in our Texas digs. It’s closer and better in Minnesota, with Gran in her own apartment attached to the house with only a doorway separating us.

But even that arrangement has problems. Once, her chair leg broke and she hit her head on the way to the floor. Thankfully, she was not really hurt, just shaken. But it would have been hours before we found her because we just don’t go to the back of the house that much.

So the remote devices coming on the market can meet a real need for everyone whether you live on the other side of the door or across the country.

I’m a candidate, too. Any day now, I’m expecting a device that will sit on the nightstand and monitor my pacemaker overnight. It will send alerts to the doctors if I have an attack. And on cloudless nights, it will get Wolfman Jack.

Works for me.