Alaska Newspaper Features Family Using SimplyHome Technology
The Juneau Empire recently published the story of Gina and Sandy, a mother and daughter who have begun to use SimplyHome technology at their remote Alaskan homestead. Read the full article or catch a sneak preview below!
Photo by Michael Penn / The Juneau Empire: Gina and her mom talk in their kitchen.
Posted November 21, 2017
by Alex McCarthy
Juneau Empire
Assistive living technology helps disabled residents feel secure at home
Juneau becomes the first city in Alaska with SimplyHome service
The Frickey residence, located Out the Road, is in a picturesque spot. Snow-laden trees surround the house, the interior of which is bright, wood-paneled and decorated for the holidays.
Despite the beauty, it can be treacherous living out there, due to isolation and the bears that lurk around the property. For Gina Frickey, living in the house with her mother Sandy, cerebral palsy and memory issues made it even more dangerous.
“I would be getting up in the middle of the night, I would be trying to use the restroom and then falling down,” Gina explained.
Gina, 39, would also sometimes forget to close the doors when she went outside, leaving the family’s multitude of dogs and cats at risk of escaping — or allowing outside animals to come into the house.
A longtime client of REACH, Gina has thrived in a variety of realms, from being one of the early leaders of REACH’s shredding program to producing pottery at The Canvas community art studio. But her struggles at home were frustrating both for her and Sandy.
A solution to their problems was all the way in North Carolina. A company called SimplyHome specializes in designing in-home systems that assist individuals with disabilities, and the Frickey house recently became the second residence in Alaska to have the system installed.
Motion sensors are installed above all the exterior doors, and in multiple locations in the house as well. The system was specifically designed to make for a safer environment when Gina gets up in the night to use the bathroom. There’s a pad on her bed that senses whether she’s in bed or not, which then communicates with other sensors around the house.
The motion sensor in the bathroom knows when Gina is out of bed, and calls Gina out by name if it senses she has fallen asleep or fallen in the bathroom. To add to that, Sandy gets alerts to her phone if Gina has been out of bed or immobile for a certain period of time.
These precautions have put both of them at ease.
“Safety-wise,” Sandy said, “things are a lot better.”