18

Page 18 THE MALDEN ADVOCATE–Friday, September 2, 2022 avy eniiooravvy S iorn or avvyavy vvy io iori by Jim Miller Daily Check-In Services for Seniors Living Alone Dear Savvy Senior, Can you recommend any services that check in on elderly seniors who live alone? I live about 200 miles from my 82-year-old mother and worry about her falling or getting ill and not being able to call for help. Worrywart Daughter Dear Worrywart, There are actually several diff erent types of check-in services, along with some simple technology devices that can help keep your mom safe at home while providing you some peace of mind. Here are some top options to look into. Check-in app: If your mom uses a smartphone, a great solution to help ensure her safety is Snug (SnugSafe.com), a free app that would check in on her every day to confi rm she’s OK. This app is used by thousands of elderly seniors who live alone and want to make sure that if something happens to them, their loved ones will be notifi ed quickly so they can receive help in minutes, rather than days. Here’s how it works. After downloading the app, your mom will choose what time(s) throughout the day she’d like for Snug to check in. Snug will send a push notifi cation at those times asking your mom to check in by tapping the big green check button on her smartphone screen. If she doesn’t check in within 10 minutes or respond after multiple pings, Snug will notify her emergency contacts and share her last known location so that she can receive fast help. For extra peace of mind, your mom can purchase Snug’s premium plan ($10/month) where in addition to notifying her emergency contacts, Snug will request an in-person wellness check by a police offi cer who will visit her house to confi rm she’s OK and provide assistance as needed. The app works with iPhone and Android smartphones. Check-in calls: If your mom doesn’t use a smartphone, another option to help ensure her safety is a daily check-in call service program. These are telephone reassurance programs usually run by police or sheriff ’s departments in hundreds of counties across the country and are usually provided free of charge. Here’s how they work. A computer automated phone system would call your mom at a designated time each day to check in. If she answers, the system will assume everything is OK. But if she didn’t pick up or if the call goes to voice mail after repeated tries, you (or whoever her designee is) would get a notifi cation call. If you are not reachable, calls are then made to backup people who’ve also agreed to check on your mom if necessary. The fallback is if no one can be reached, the police or other emergency services personnel will be dispatched to her home. To fi nd out if this service is available in your mom’s community, call her local police department’s nonemergency number. You should also check with the Area Agency on Aging in your mom’s area – call 800-677-1116 for contact information. If, however, her community doesn’t have a call check-in program, there are businesses like CARE (Call-Reassurance.com) and IAmFine (Iamfi ne.com) that off er similar services for under $15 per month. Technology devices: You may also want to invest in some simple technology aids to keep your mom safe. One of the most commonly used devices for this is a medical alert system that cost about $1 per day. These systems come with a wearable “help button” that would allow her to call for help 24/7. Another option that’s becoming increasingly popular is smart speakers, like Amazon Alexa or Google Home. These devices work with third-party applications – AskMyBuddy.net and MySOSFamily.com – that would let your mom to call multiple emergency contacts with a simple verbal command. And be sure to check out Amazon’s Alexa Together (Amazon. com/AlexaTogether), a new $20 monthly subscription service that helps families support and keep tabs on their older loved ones who live alone through an Alexa-enabled device. Send your senior questions to: Savvy Senior, P.O. Box 5443, Norman, OK 73070, or visit SavvySenior.org. Jim Miller is a contributor to the NBC Today show and author of “The Savvy Senior” book. ~ Guest Commentary ~ Troubling New Research on Political Bias and Bigotry by Dr. Luke Conway T alk about a strange political year. African Americans and Jewish Americans are typically the two most reliable liberal voting blocks in the country, and yet there have been troubling news stories and now data regarding the people who support them. For example, Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar sparked outrage by doubling down on comments many perceived to be anti-semitic. She is a Democrat who typically gets Democrat votes. Such left-wing hostilities towards Jews have become so bad in the United States that some American Jews are openly considering leaving the country and moving to Israel. Similar diffi culties face African Americans. Ilhan Omar’s controversy arrived barely two months after the racist “Uncle Tim” attacks propagated by liberals at African American Senator Tim Scott. These attacks were so markedly racist that the trend had to be shut down by Twitter. More recently, similarly racist “Uncle Clarence” attacks were levied at Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas after he voted to overturn Roe v. Wade. White liberals on Twitter even invoked the “N-word,” and were called out in a remarkable piece by a Columbia University sociology professor. These are the kind of racist behaviors that many associate with conservatives. But to be clear: Those are liberals expressing racist vitriol towards blacks and Jews. And again, blacks and Jews tend to faithfully vote for liberal Democrats. Of course, it is easy to pass off such vitriol as primarily political and not targeted at racial or ethnic groups. And indeed, social psychological research has demonstrated for years that both liberals and conservatives tend to show more biases against racial groups when they think members of those groups disagree with them politically. For example, a well-known study showed that the conservative bias against INVITATION TO BID blacks was essentially because most conservatives believed that blacks tended to be politically liberal. However, when faced with black conservatives, the usual pattern reversed, and liberals—not conservatives— showed a dislike for blacks. Although politically motivated, this does not mean such biases have no societal consequences. After all, these are real ethnic groups and the dislike for them isn’t fi ctitious, no matter its motive. And that should matter. To better understand what is going on, in two recent studies, I and my colleagues tried to parse whether or not liberals and conservatives actually like representative members of these two groups. To do so, we took a trait from each group that is strongly empirically associated with the group in the real world and asked people what they thought about the resulting representative set of group members. So, for African AmerRESEARCH | SEE PAGE 19 CITY OF MALDEN - OFFICE OF THE CONTROLLER - LEGAL NOTICE - The City of Malden invites sealed bids in accordance with M.G.L. c 149 from Contractors for: ROOF REPLACEMENT MALDEN SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION BUILDING 110 PLEASANT STREET, MALDEN, MA Contract Documents will be available by email request at purchasing@cityofmalden.org after 9:00 a.m., Wednesday, September 7, 2022. Sealed Bids will be received until 2:00 p.m. on September 23, 2022, at the City of Malden Controller’s Office, 215 Pleasant Street, Malden MA 02148. Bids will not be accepted nor may submitted Bids be corrected, modified, or withdrawn after the deadline for submission. Following the submission deadline, Bids received within the time specified will be publicly opened and read aloud. All bids must be accompanied by a bid deposit in an amount that is not less than five percent (5%) of the value of the bid, bid deposits, payable to the City of Malden, shall be either in the form of a bid bond, or cash, or a certified check, or a treasurer’s or cashier’s check issued by a responsible bank or trust company. All bids are subject to the provisions of M.G.L. c149, §§44A to 44J. Wages are subject to minimum wage rate determined by the Massachusetts Department of Labor Standards pursuant to M.G.L. c149, §§26 to 27H. The successful bidder will be required to furnish both a Labor and Materials Payment Bond, each in the amount of 50% of the contract total. The City will reject any and all bids in accordance with the above referenced General Laws. In addition, the City reserves the right to waive minor informalities in any or all bids or to reject any or all bids (in whole or in part) if it be in the public interest to do so. In the event that any person wishes to attend a bid opening or pre-bid walk through, accessible, and reasonable accommodations will be provided to persons requiring assistance. If you need a reasonable accommodation, please contact the city of Malden’s ADA Coordinator, Maria Luise, at least two business days in advance of the meeting: 781-397-7000, Ext. 2005 or mluise@cityofmalden.org. CITY OF MALDEN Office of the Controller September 2, 2022

19 Publizr Home