Coming up: Sensors and sleep – Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal
As Americans continue to live longer, demand for services such as assisted living, nursing homes and home care is skyrocketing.
More than 65 million Americans, or nearly a third of the U.S. population, are caring for a chronically ill, disabled or an aged family member or friend in any given year, according to the National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP.
The long-term care market in the U.S. was reported at $258 billion in 2010, and is expected to grow an average of 5 percent to 6 percent annually through 2015, according to Kalorama Information.
Into that huge market, enter BAM Labs.
The Campbell-based company BAM makes a “smart bed” system that can monitor a person’s heart rate, breathing patterns, and when they get in and out of bed. The company has started marketing to residential care facilities and has lined up clients that include senior living community The Terraces of Los Gatos. it has raised $6.1 million to date.
The company’s co-founders, Rich Rifredi and Steve Young, worked together at Apple and developed the idea for the company after Rifredi’s son was born premature in 2001 and needed to be monitored. The wired devices used to monitor the baby gave constant false alarms, and Rifredi believed there had to be a better way.
BAM Labs’ technology is essentially a mat that contains an extremely sensitive sensor, which can be slid underneath any mattress. The technology is meant to make life easier for caregivers and safer for those who use it. A caregiver, for example, can see when a dementia patient gets out of bed and go assist them, preventing potential falls.
Check out this Friday’s edition of the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal for more on the company and the uses the founders envision for the technology.
Diana Samuels covers technology, cleantech, biotech and venture capital. Her phone number is 408.299.1835.
