Disrupting Caregiving: Why Passive AI May Be the Only Scalable Way to Age at Home
Even though roughly 80% of older adults live at home, care planning often begins only after a fall, hospitalization, or cognitive scare forces the family to act. Aparna Pujar, CEO and founder of Zemplee, argues that the problem is not just cost, it is a system still built around episodic intervention instead of continuous support.
TAMPA BAY, Fla., June 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Growing old at home should not require a crisis to prove someone needs help. Among older adults, falls are already a massive and growing crisis: in the U.S., more than 14 million adults 65 and older (about 1 in 4) report falling each year, and the fall death rate for this age group has risen 21% since 2018. On this episode of Disruption Interruption, host Karla Jo Helms (KJ) speaks with Aparna Pujar, CEO and founder of Zemplee, about why the senior care industry is still reacting too late, why families are left to learn caregiving in real time, and how passive, AI-powered monitoring may be the only scalable path forward. As Pujar puts it, "most often, determining their care needs comes very late in the game, and it's a very expensive delay."
Why Senior Care Still Starts Too Late
For Pujar, the real failure sits where most older adults actually live: at home. About 20% of seniors live in institutional settings, while the remaining 80% live independently or with family, often without meaningful proactive support. The problem, she argues, is that families usually do not start planning until something serious happens. By the time a fall, hospitalization, or other acute event forces the issue, families are no longer planning calmly. They are reacting under pressure, often with little preparation and even less visibility.
The emotional structure of caregiving makes the system even harder to navigate. Parents often hide decline because they do not want to burden their children, while adult children are forced to improvise under pressure. "Parents don't tell you," Pujar says. "Half the time, if you ask them, they'll always say, 'Oh, I'm doing fine.'" The result is a care system that often begins with confusion, guilt, and guesswork instead of preparation.
Pujar's point is that this is no longer a niche family problem, but a broad social and economic one. The world is aging faster than most care systems are adapting. According to the World Health Organization, people aged 60 and older already outnumber children under 5 globally, and by 2030, one in six people in the world will be 60 or older. By 2050, the global population over 60 is expected to reach 2.1 billion. In that context, episodic care does not stay contained within one household. It spills into hospital systems, workplaces, and families already trying to absorb the cost, time, and emotional strain of aging. Pujar frames it plainly, "It not only affects everybody, it affects everybody intergenerationally."
Passive Care Before the Crisis
Zemplee is Pujar's answer to that delay. Inspired by her own experience as a remote caregiver for her parents in India while working at eBay, she built the company around the idea that support should happen in the background of everyday life, not only after something goes wrong. The model uses passive sensors and AI to detect patterns in movement, routines, nutrition, and activity inside the home without requiring the older adult to learn new technology or change behavior just to be monitored. "We are trying to not increase the cognitive load for them," Pujar says. "It's all passive."
That is what Pujar means when she calls the technology "lifestyle integrated." Instead of asking older adults to constantly report symptoms or adapt to a new interface, the system quietly observes routine activities and monitors any subtle signs of decline, such as falls, cognitive changes, or chronic-condition flare-ups. Her goal is not to make the home feel clinical. It is to turn it into what she describes as a "fully equipped, digital, caring platform" that helps preserve dignity, independence, and safety for as long as possible.
That is the disruption at the center of her argument: stop waiting for the fall, hospitalization, or panic call, and start building a care system that reaches people earlier, more quietly, and far more humanely. Pujar's larger point is that aging should not be treated as an afterthought or a crisis category. It is a universal life stage, and the systems around it should be designed with that reality in mind. In her words, "Everybody's gonna get old, so we have to design our future. If I'm going to be a part of this system 20 years from now, how do I want that to work for me?"
Links
Disrupting the Senior Care Crisis: Why the System is Failing, and AI is the Only Way Out with Aparna Pujar
Disruption Interruption is the podcast where you will hear from today's biggest Industry Disruptors. Learn what motivated them to bring about innovation and how they overcame opposition to adoption.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aparnapujar/
Company Website:https://zemplee.com
About Disruption Interruption™
Disruption is happening on an unprecedented scale, impacting all manner of industries — MedTech, Finance, IT, eCommerce, shipping, logistics, and more — and COVID has moved their timelines up a full decade or more. But WHO are these disruptors and when did they say, "THAT'S IT! I'VE HAD IT!"? Time to Disrupt and Interrupt with host Karla Jo "KJ" Helms, veteran communications disruptor. KJ interviews badasses who are disrupting their industries and altering economic networks that have become antiquated with an establishment resistant to progress. She delves into uncovering secrets from industry rebels and quiet revolutionaries that uncover common traits — and not-so-common — that are changing our economic markets… and lives. Visit the world's key pioneers that persist to success, despite arrows in their backs at www.disruption-interruption.com.
About Aparna Pujar
Aparna Pujar is the CEO and founder of Zemplee, an AI-powered senior care company built to help older adults age safely and independently at home through passive, continuous monitoring. A technologist by training, with a background in electrical engineering, computer science, and an extensive career in the IT industry, she launched Zemplee after becoming a remote caregiver for her aging parents in India while working as a mid-career executive at eBay. That personal caregiving crisis became the catalyst for building a system she believed did not exist: one that reduces the burden on families, respects the dignity of older adults, and uses technology not as intrusion, but as quiet support woven into daily life.
About Karla Jo Helms
Karla Jo Helms is the Chief Evangelist and Anti-PR® Strategist for JOTO PR Disruptors™. Karla Jo learned firsthand how unforgiving business can be when millions of dollars are on the line — and how the control of public opinion often determines whether one company is happily chosen, or another is brutally rejected. Being an alumnus of crisis management, Karla Jo has worked with litigation attorneys, private investigators, and the media to help restore companies of goodwill into the good graces of public opinion — Karla Jo operates on the ethic of getting it right the first time, not relying on second chances and doing what it takes to excel. Helms speaks globally on public relations, how the PR industry itself has lost its way, and how, in the right hands, corporations can harness the power of Anti-PR to drive markets and impact market perception.
References
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2024, October 28). Older adult falls data. Older Adult Fall Prevention. cdc.gov/falls/data-research/index.html
- Jr, S. M. (2014, January 10). Caregiving in The US | The National Alliance for Caregiving. caregiving.org. caregiving.org/research/caregiving-in-the-us/
- World Health Organization. (2025, October 1). Ageing and health. who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ageing-and-health
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SOURCE Disruption Interruption
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