How glass toasters could help keep older people out of nursing homes for longer
How often do you burn the toast? I don't mean overcook it a bit, I mean put the toast in so long smoke starts coming out of the slots.
It's happened once or twice to all of us. Maybe you left the dial up too high; maybe the toast wasn't quite done, so you put it in for another go and forgot to pop it back up.
The smoke rises, it sets off the smoke alarm and it ruins your nice calm breakfast.
For most of your life, it is just a frustration, but David Panter, the chief executive at South Australian aged care provider ECH, says it is a huge problem for elderly people living on their own.
The glass toaster
Older people burn toast more often, and repeated false alarms can lead their adult children to believe that their parents cannot look after themselves.
"The smoke alarm, for many older people, is linked into a bigger system," Dr Panter said.
"In our experience, false alarms become a black mark against mum or dad, and evidence that they can't cope at home.
"With a glass-sided toaster you can see the toast brown. It eliminates, in our experience, 100 per cent of smoke alarms going off, and takes away that black mark."
Glass toasters have been available since 2010, but Dr Panter said he only recently discovered how much of a difference they can make to elderly people.