Testing the Hypothesis, Part 2

From Assignment 7:

 

Opportunity: Senior citizens need help managing various tasks inside and outside of their homes, as well as companionship. Often, this burden of care falls to the senior’s adult children, who are trying balance careers and children of their own. There is an opportunity to help the adult children care for their aging parents.

 

Who: The adult children of senior citizens

 

What: Caring for elderly parents who need assistance inside and outside of their homes and providing them with companionship

 

Why: The adult children are busy trying to balance their own careers and families as well as acting as crucial caregivers to their elderly parents.

 

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Interview 1: This week, my first interview was with a 70-year-old woman. She is currently living independently in a different state than her family. Despite this, she does not have a need for this service. She is currently leading an active lifestyle, with a bustling social life, including a boyfriend. She only recently retired from her job as a schoolteacher, and is still very intellectually sharp and physically capable. She specifically noted that she doesn’t need help driving, even though she would be unwilling to drive a long distance. Despite the many facets of the proposed service, she said that she had no real need for any help.

 

Interview 2: My second interview was with a middle-aged man whose parents are in their late seventies. He and his wife have no children, but both have busy careers. The interviewee said that he had no need to hire a service to help his parents, because he deliberately moved into a home 5 minutes away from his parent’s house so that he was available to help them. He spends time with his parents daily, so they are not lonely, and he assists them with everything from grocery runs to cleaning their gutters.

 

Interview 3: My third interview was with man in his 50s. He and his wife have three children and his 75-year-old mother-in-law (MIL) living in their home. They moved his MIL into their home over 10 years ago for financial reasons and to provide her with companionship as she was living on her own at the time. He said that the having the MIL around was actually very beneficial to his family, as she helped the family and also was able to form very close relationships with her grandchildren. Presently, he doesn’t see a need for a personalized service to help his MIL as all of her needs are met by the family, of which she is an integral part. He said that the only reason he would bring in outside help was if his MIL needs medical assistance in the home in the future.

 

Interview 4: My fourth interview was with a 61-year-old woman whose parents lived across the country. Both of her parents are in their 80s and have long-term medical issues that require care and assistance on a daily basis. She said that she would not be interested in this service for two reasons. First, it would not meet her parents’ needs, as they need certified nurses to help them manage their medical conditions. Second, her parents have been moved into a nursing home, so all of their wants and needs are met, and they therefore have no need for the service. She said that the service would have been beneficial a few years prior before her parent’s medical issues worsened, but was concerned that the cost of the service would have stopped her from hiring it.

 

Interview 5: My last interview was with a middle-aged man whose mother lives across town. He said that he would love to hire the service to help his mother, but that she would not let them help her, even if she needed the help. He felt that his mother was not receptive to the idea of having strangers in her home, helping her with personal tasks like picking up her medications or taking her to medical appointments. He said that knowing his mother, she would refuse to let an assistant into her home to help on principle, even if he had already hired and prepaid for the service. He also noted that his mother was a little paranoid and not trusting of others, which did not make her a good candidate for this service.

 

 

Interview Reflection: This week’s interviews helped show me that my opportunity was smaller than I had thought. While I had suspected that some seniors would be independent enough to have no need for this service (like my first interviewee), I did not anticipate that a lack of trust from a senior would exclude them from this service (like my fifth interview). Based on my customer interviews from this week and last week, I think that some clients outside the boundaries of my service would be clients that need qualified medical assistance, clients that would not welcome help in their homes, and clients that are completely self-sufficient. A major way in which the need I identified differs from other needs is the clear line between non-medical care and medical care. Because medical care requires special training and certification, it is beyond the scope of my proposed service. That being said, that need still exists and is currently being met in other ways, like assisted living facilities. Another major way that the needs differed is that people who are still completely self-sufficient fall outside the boundary of the service, while people who need some level of assistance but are still mostly independent fall within the boundary. Overall, the degree of assistance that seniors require falls on a spectrum, with self-sufficiency at one end and full-time care falling at the other. Because of this spectrum, the underlying causes of the need vary. The underlying causes can be as varied as the individuals themselves.

 

 

Inside the Boundary	Outside the Boundary
Who is In: ·      Adult children of senior citizens, whose parents need some level of assistance which they cannot provide ·      Senior citizens, who are mostly independent, but need some level of support that they are not receiving	Who is Not: ·      Seniors who are self-sufficient ·      Seniors who have adequate family support ·      Seniors who require qualified medical care ·      Seniors who are not willing to accept help
What the Need is: ·      Help with everyday tasks inside and outside of the home (like driving, cleaning, cooking, organization of personal affairs, etc.) ·      Companionship	What the Need is Not: ·      Qualified nursing care
Why the Need Exists: ·      No family or other support in town ·      Family in town cannot provide care due to their own obligations ·      Seniors want to continue to live independently as long as possible without imposing on their loved ones	Alternate Explanations: ·      Seniors are unwilling to accept help ·      The service is beyond the financial means of the customer ·      Family and friends are able and willing to provide adequate support ·      Senior is self-sufficient ·      Senior needs qualified medical care