The International Society for Gerontechnology's
7th World Conference
Vancouver, Canada
May 27-30, 2010
Prepared by:
Peter Kwok, Project Manager, Information Technology Resource Centre Limited
Scarlett Tsang, Unit Manager, The Providence Garden for Rehab,Sheng Kung Hui Welfare Council
Cain Ng, Social Work Supervisor, Chi Lin Elderly Services
Introduction
The International Society for Gerontechnology's 7th World Conference
Vancouver, Canada, May 27-30, 2010
Internationally recognized experts in gerontechology shared their knowledge and experience through lectures, symposia, workshops, papers and posters. Topics addressed included rehabilitation engineering, robotics, telemonitoring, telecare, ICT, biomechanics and ergonomics, assistive technology, inclusive design and usability, smart homes and smart fabrics, sensor technology, and cognitive aging and computer games.
In addition to a strong scientific program the Conference featured an exhibition and trade show, an exciting social program, and pre- and post-conference special interest events.
The main theme of the conference was"Technologies for Health, Quality-of-Life and Aging-in-Place ". The 2010 ISG conference brought together two crucial themes. Firstly, old people, given the right help and support, would prefer to continue living in their familiar homes and neighborhoods for as long as possible. The use of technology, ranging from simple assistive devices to complex information and communication systems, has considerable potential for enhancing the lives of many older people and helping them to age-in-place.
Secondly, much of the research and development within the field of ageing and technology has focused on issues of safety and security. While these remain important, equal consideration needs to be given to how technology can positively enhance the everyday lives of older people by supporting independent living, social participation and improving health and well-being. These considerations need to be contextualized within the realities of global population ageing. The impact of ageing baby-boomers will present enormous challenges to health and economic institutions in coming decades. It is a reality that demands creative responses and the opportunities afforded by new technology are an important part of this response.
The aim of the conference was to bring together researchers from around the world, who were working in the area of gerontechnology, to present the results to their research and assess the implications for the development of practical solutions to the needs of older people, family carers and care professionals. In particular, the aim was to explore how technology can:
Enhance quality of life and well-being
Preserve autonomy and feelings of security
Improve the efficiency and effectiveness of health services
Over 350 participants from all corners of the globe shared their knowledge and experience in 28 invited and submitted symposia, 18 paper sessions in which over 80 papers covering all aspects of technology and aging were presented, and 7 poster sessions with over 100 posters covering aides for dementia patients and their carers, housing and institutional design issues, health management, using technology in everyday life and user aspects of gerontechnology. The program also featured expert round tables, an exhibition, a GerontechnoPlatform, demonstrating state of the-art-products, site visits, a Master Class for students and an exciting social program.
(b) Evaluation of the Event Program (content / scope of the papers presented)
Topic:Changing practices: Home and community based care technologies for independent living
By:Mr. Eric Dishman, Intel Fellow, Digital Health Group, Director, Health Innovation and Policy, Intel Corporation
In the plenary session, Mr. Eric Dishman of Intel Corporation discussed about the business case and investment of resources in technology for aging. There is little argument that the population of the world is aging rapidly, nevertheless, Dishman pointed out that the society, especially the government authorities, do not invest wisely on gerontechnology. He questioned the attendance on the society's continuing, and even increasing investment in institutional care. Although home-based and community-based care are believed to be more sustainable, and more important is that, it is more beneficial than institutional care to senior citizens, the investment of resources does not manifest such importance.
In the disease model, the notion of health, not necessarily confined to health of our older populations, was fragmented, if not disintegrated; for instance, the society emphasize on microscopic / specialist diagnosis but there is relative less focus on the holistic view of health and the overall quality of life and functioning of the person. Dishman pointed out that many resources, be it cash or manpower resources, were spent to develop precise diagnostic tools such as advanced X-ray, ultrasound, etc. but there is very limited resources to develop technology (gerontechnology) for community care. He also remarked that there was a large room in interfacing the institutional care with the community/home-based care with ICT solutions. The concept does not include only the exchange of medical records or prescriptions, more important question to ask it that how the different systems of the client, e.g. their home, caregivers, social network, employer, medical practitioners, etc. could be connected.
In addressing the viability and sustainability of care technology, Dishman pointed out that the market of care technology was still considered immature. He revealed to the attendants that the "Cost of Care / Day" was indeed lower in community-cased / home-based care, but the quality of life of the clients is much enhanced. He challenged the participants to pay more efforts in building up the evidence-base of gerontechnology and to prove the effectiveness and efficacy of these solutions with controlled trial experiments.
At the end of the plenary speech, he also introduced several areas of gerotechnology that would contribute to the better quality of life of the elderly, e.g. GPS and touch-videoconferencing solutions for driving-seniors to build up their social network in the neighbourhood, use of computer games as assessment tools (e.g. Solitaire), virtual care platform (to connect medical professionals with clients, and to provide health education information and reminders to clients), solutions of gait and falls analysis, etc. He concluded his remark by suggesting that the way of pay and practice has to be changed, and this relies on the concerted effort of policy makers, medical practitioners and students, care industry, etc.
Topic:Innovative approached to dealing with population aging
By:Dr. John Beard, Director, Department of Ageing and Life Course, World Health Organization
In the second keynote of the day, Beard focused on the issues of ageing faced by the developing countries. Unless societies develop innovative ways of responding to the demographic shirt, the older populations will place a heavy burden on governments of health care, social services and financial support. However, older people are also a neglected resource having skills, experience and wisdom that can make a great contribution, He pointed out that in the developed society, responses to ageing population shall include liberating the human resources in the aged population, e.g. flexibility in employment, engagement for elderly in social decisions, etc. The planning of an longer life vest not only on employment or retirement planning, but also results in a life planning that was significantly different from the past, and this applies to all people but not exclusively for elderly.
Beard noted that this was the context in the developed world. In the developing countries, one of the major issues about ageing is that the population / countries were growing old before getting rich. It was forecasted that there will be 1.6 billion older adults living in the less-developed countries in 20-years time, and Beard put forward that the following areas were approached what could be explore:-
Employment / Engagement
Disaster Management
Medical treatment
Rehabilitation on disabilities
In this connection, the technology would be an enabling element in the following areas:-
Convergence of everyday technology – Technology could connect the older adults and allow their participation. Health or rehabilitation information could also be imparted via information technology. Training and life-long learning could also be facilitated by the application of technology;
Medical technology – What technology can do in this aspect include, screening and detection of disease / vulnerabilities, treatment and also rehabilitation assistance such as assistive devices;
Data infrastructure – Data infrastructure include the use of Internet for health care, how records (from medical, social, and other systems) of the clients can be linked and consolidated to present the overall understanding on the health and quality of life of clients.
In concluding his speech, he urged the participants to pay close attention to the developing world; he also asked the participants to look at ageing as a process of development instead of applying a problem paradigm. He believed that the ageing issue would bring not only problems, but also opportunities for the society to advance.
Session title: CIHR Canada – UK New Dynamics of Ageing Research Initiative
In this session, the projects presented were research initiatives under UK – Canada collaboration. Two presentations were on the development and evaluation on the assessment for the effectiveness of assistive technologies, in particular those related to continence problems. Van den Heuvel and Jutai introduced the Psychosocial Impact of Assistive Devices Scare (PIADS), while they admitted that more sensitive measures shall be developed in the future. Southall and Jutai, who worker on the development and validation of a questionnaire to measure the psychosocial impact on assistive technologies for continence in elderly individuals, revealed that they had conducted a meta-analysis, supported with interviews with elderly individuals, caregiviers and health care professionals to evaluate the effectiveness of assistive devices on controlling continence problems. The qualitative study was still ongoing at the time of presentation and the researchers had shared their progress with the attendees.
In the presentation on "Sustaining IT (Sus-IT) use by older people to promote autonomy and independence", by Damodaran, Young, et al., it was quoted, from national statistics that, many people aged 65+ are regular and enthusiastic users of the Internet. The author quoted, from the UK Digital Inclusion Panel Report, that
"there is a real risk that in the medium to long term, significantly more citizens will migrate from being digitally engaged to being unengaged than the other way round, as their capabilities change".
The author further suggested that the hurdles in using ICT were forgetfulness, lack of confidence and fear.
The project was designed to identify ways to engage effective participation of older people in ICT policy, research and design; to investigate sustained use of technology by older people; to explore how to sustain autonomy and independence of older people by ICT and to influence policy and design related to ICT use by older people. And from the project, the Administer Digital Engagement Questionnaire (DEQ) was developed to measure the degree of engagement in ICT by the older adults. At the time of presentation, many works are done on the preparatory purposes and the results of the projects will be available after completion of project in 2012.
Topic: What is the contribution of technology to ageing-in-place?
Anthea Tinker, the Professor of Social Gerontology of King’s College London (UK), shared that surveys across the world show that ageing in place (including specialised housing) was the preferred options for most elderly. Gerontechnology focus on the fundamental aspects of technology to serve the ageing society. According to UK, gerontechnology is considered specifically ‘assistive technology’, ‘aids and adaptations’, telecare, telemedicine and robots. Smart home is the design putting all technology together.
Assistive technology (AT) is an umbrella term for any device or system that allows individuals to perform tasks they would otherwise be unable to do or increase the ease and safety with which they can be performed. An assistive device is equipment that enables an individual who requires assistance to perform the daily activities essential to maintain health and autonomy and to live as full a life as possible. Aids and adaptations is a major focus of housing policies and home improvement agencies. Telecare is care provided at a distance. It’s used for continuous, automatic and remote monitoring of real time emergencies and lifestyle changes over time in order to manage the risks associated with independent living. The information about health related issues was transferred between one or more sites. Telemedicine refers to the employment of communication technology to provide assistance in the diagnosis, treatment, care and management of health conditions in remote areas. Robots refer to machine capable of carrying out a series of complex actions automatically for many purposes, such as helping in the home with domestic tasks, acting as a personal assistant for bed transfer. In UK, most assistive technology is fairly basic even in remodelled buildings. Telecare, especially alarms and sensors, is high on the agenda of government social care policies but telemedicine is rarely applied for older people at this stage.
Developments in alarms, monitors, and sensors have great potential for addressing safety and security needs, but do not address many of the other needs that arise from mobility or cognitive limitations. Moreover, all the technology in the world in terms of monitors and alarms can be provided but it’s still essential to have human response back-up. It is suggested that technology has to be considered as part of other services and that there is a danger in too much faith being put in technology to the exclusion of human support.
There are various factors and limitations affecting the use of technology such as differences between generations, users’ acceptability, safety, usability of the AT and etc. There is a need for guidance about the use of AT and to explain to older people what it is and how it works. It is also clear that AT needs to be introduced before people are too old, when it may be more difficult to learn new and quite complex procedures, in order to provide benefits as monitoring and alarm systems in later years. The key importance of AT is design for all and the need for simplicity, and it is expected to be compact, simple to operate, maintain, and in response to the needs of the older person.
In the conference, several symposia of the programme presented the current developments of domotics that supporting ageing in place in the community, while some of them are tailored made for person with dementia (PwD). There are also papers about the ongoing research and development of fall preventive measures, such as hip protectors, compliant floor materials, fall detective and analysis system, as well as advanced wheelchairs for tackling the mobility limitations encountered by older person.
Topic: Active and Passive Monitoring Technologies to Support Aging-in-Place
Monitoring technology, a kind of telecare, has evolved to provide the potential for focusing on personal needs of the individual who requires monitoring by providing information about health and functioning that supports and assists them to maintain independent living in the community. Monitoring aids worn by the user and passive monitoring systems embedded in the user’s living space were introduced in the symposium.
Mobile monitoring to support independence and safety
(Monitoring aids worn by the user)
AFrame Digital, Inc, (Crump) a research-based mobile technology company ( has developed a ‘Personal Help Device’, called ‘myPHD’. It incorporates passive and active monitoring, as well as software-based data analysis and web access. The myPHD is intended to be worn 24 hours a day and monitors an individual’s activity, location and physiological status in real time, indoors and outside and may take the form of a wristwatch or under-bandage device, to meet the needs of the monitored individual.
The data collected include location information, impact detection, skin and ambient temperature, health surveys, blood-oxygen saturation, heart rate, blood pressure and weight. Some of the data will be measured using the AFramemyPHD watch monitor. The device was also tested to detect falls and monitor changes in gait. The wireless, third party devices that are part of the AFrame system used for this study will include a pulse-oximeter, which provides both heart rate and blood-oxygen saturation level, a weight scale, a blood-pressure cuff and a user-friendly device for responding to a daily health questionnaire.
The goal is to be able to continuously and non-intrusively monitor individuals to prevent falls and the medical complications that follow. Caregivers or managers have a mobile touch-screen device to receive alerts and check activity and health data. AFrame Digital is a technology company delivering intelligent, nonintrusive, and secure wireless wellness monitoring and alerting solutions to senior living communities, rehabilitation facilities, and in the home. The AFrame Digital system is FDA-cleared and in use in several long term care facilities and independent residences. The company is actively engaged in research in collaboration with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Brooke Army Medical Center and Walter Reed Army Medical Center in US to support the recovery of wounded warriors and veterans in outpatient and home settings.