of older Canadians want to remain in their own home as they age
believe it will actually be possible for them to do so
Source: March of Dimes Canada, National Home Modifications Survey, 2021, as cited in Jakobi et al., "Growing Older at Home: Canadians' Meaning of Aging in Place," Journal of Aging and Environment (2024).
That gap — 55 percentage points between aspiration and expectation — has been repeatedly flagged in Canadian aging research. And it is widely misread.
The instinctive interpretation is that aging in place fails because of care needs — because older adults eventually require medical support, physical assistance, or supervision that a home environment cannot provide. That is true for some. But it is not what drives the gap for the majority.
The majority of that gap is an orchestration problem.
What "aging in place" actually requires
For an active, independent senior — someone like Robert, who is managing a full life with competence and intention — aging in place is not primarily a medical challenge. It is a coordination challenge.
It requires managing medications with increasing complexity. Coordinating between multiple healthcare providers whose systems do not speak to each other. Keeping track of warranties, maintenance schedules, financial renewals, and government benefits. Staying connected with family without becoming dependent on them. Knowing when to act on a health signal and when not to worry.
None of these are care needs. They are orchestration needs. And they accumulate.
"The tools that exist today were not designed for the life Robert is actually living. They were designed for a younger, employed person managing work deliverables."
The National Research Council of Canada's Aging in Place Challenge program, launched in April 2021 with a seven-year mandate, is built on the same premise: that technology and innovation are essential to supporting older Canadians' choice to age in their own homes and communities.
Source: National Research Council of Canada, Aging in Place Challenge program.
The cost of getting this wrong
Between 22% and 30% of seniors who entered long-term care could have been supported at home with appropriate community-based services.
Source: CIHI, Seniors in Transition: Exploring Pathways Across the Care Continuum, 2017.
Per-person healthcare spending in Canada is roughly four times higher for seniors than for younger adults — approximately $12,000 annually per adult over 65, compared to around $2,700 for Canadians under 65. Seniors already account for more than 45% of total provincial and territorial health expenditures, a share projected to rise sharply as the population ages.
Source: Canadian Institute for Health Information, National Health Expenditure Trends.
Supporting aging in place is not only the humane choice. It is the economically rational one. The gap between what it costs to support someone at home and what it costs to transition them into institutional care is substantial — and it widens every year.
What technology has gotten wrong
The AgeTech market has responded to the aging in place challenge with an enormous amount of energy and capital. Much of it has gone to monitoring — safety sensors, fall detection, activity tracking, and alert systems that reassure families while providing older adults with a layer of surveillance they did not ask for.
Some has gone to care coordination — platforms designed to help family caregivers and professional care managers navigate complex health systems on behalf of an older adult.
Very little has gone to the person in the middle: the active, independent senior who does not need monitoring, does not need a care manager, and is not in decline — but whose daily life has become genuinely complex, whose tools do not work together, and who is quietly becoming the integration layer for a fragmented ecosystem that was never designed to serve them.
That person is the majority of the 81%. And the market has not yet built deeply for this specific person.
The orchestration gap, named
What closes the gap between 81% and 26% is not more care. It is better orchestration — technology that reduces the invisible daily effort of managing a full and complex life, that connects the tools that already exist, that surfaces what matters at the moment it matters, and that helps Robert stay independent not by watching over him but by working alongside him.
The 55-point gap is not inevitable. It reflects the absence of a product category — life orchestration for active, independent older adults — that the market has not yet built deeply for them.
That is the gap MyNaavi was built to close.
What that looks like in practice
Before his doctor's appointment, Robert says "record my visit." He puts the phone on the examination-room table. When the visit ends he says "Naavi stop." Before he reaches his car, every prescription is on his calendar — one reminder per dose, for the full course. The follow-up appointment is booked. The transcript is in his Google Drive. His daughter has a text. The whole conversation is indexed so he can ask about it three months later: "what did Dr. Smith say about my knee?" and get a real answer.
No app to open. No screen to squint at. One voice interface. That is the orchestration layer.
Be among the first.
MyNaavi is in private preview with families in Ontario. Reach out if you represent a care organization, or join the waitlist for priority access as we expand.