Assistive Technologies For The Aging Population

Assistive Technology for the Elderly addresses the intricacies involved in the design and development of assisted technologies for the elderly, covering smart systems such as magnifying book contents, speaking electronic devices, alarms for doors and windows, smart alert bands, panic buttons, medication dispensers and reminders, Wander Gard, physiological parameters monitoring systems and smart home monitoring systems. This book is aimed at those who are responsible for designing assistive technology intended to be used by the elderly. It lays out the technology that is already available and covers user needs and state-of-the-art technologies and methodologies. Focuses on practical devices and technology for engineers Offers deep coverage of sensor based assistive technologies that are elderly for people with dementia, physical disabilities and people living alone Covers assistive technology ecosystems and offers case studies for practical application

Demographics reveal that the proportion of elderly individuals in the population is growing at a significant rate. Advances in medicine have allowed populations to live longer than ever; however, ensuring that these individuals have the tools necessary to sustain a productive and happy lifestyle as they age remains a concern. Optimizing Assistive Technologies for Aging Populations focuses on the development and improvement of devices intended to assist elderly individuals in coping with various physical limitations and disabilities. Highlighting the available tools and technologies for supporting the mobility, agility, and self-sufficiency of the aging population as well as the challenges associated with the integration of these technologies into the everyday lives of elderly individuals, this publication is ideally designed for reference use by healthcare workers, medical students, gerontologists, and IT developers in the field of medicine.

Emerging and currently available technologies offer great promise for helping older adults, even those without serious disabilities, to live healthy, comfortable, and productive lives. What technologies offer the most potential benefit? What challenges must be overcome, what problems must be solved, for this promise to be fulfilled? How can federal agencies like the National Institute on Aging best use their resources to support the translation from laboratory findings to useful, marketable products and services? Technology for Adaptive Aging is the product of a workshop that brought together distinguished experts in aging research and in technology to discuss applications of technology to communication, education and learning, employment, health, living environments, and transportation for older adults. It includes all of the workshop papers and the report of the committee that organized the workshop. The committee report synthesizes and evaluates the points made in the workshop papers and recommends priorities for federal support of translational research in technology for older adults.

The United States is experiencing an unprecedented growth of its older adult population from now until 2050. The current health paradigm, which is focused on the provider model of health, is not going to be able to handle this growth and demand on the system. A health model where patients and other stakeholders participate in healthcare may be sustainable. However, these people need to be empowered, and technology can play a big role. Thus, it will become of increasing importance to discover the most appropriate way to integrate technology into daily living to maintain proper quality of life for this adult cohort. The work contained in this doctoral dissertation is driven by the needs of older adults, and represents examples of the types of technologies and design methods that will be needed to keeping older adults healthy. These medical technologies aim to address some the prevalent healthcare issues facing older adults in an appropriate and dignity preserving way. Three technologies will be discussed here, the first is a novel hearing technology that addresses many of the concerns older adults have with the presently available hearing devices. The device is located deep in the ear canal and recreates sounds with mechanical movements of the tympanic membrane. The DHD successfully recreated ossicular chain movements across the frequencies of human hearing while demonstrating controllable magnitude. Moreover, the device was validated in a short-term human clinical performance study where the DHD successfully recreated sound in healthy subject. The second is an exploratory non-invasive diagnostic system that analyzes a subject's pupil light reflex to gain insight to neurological health. This prototype was developed and validated on a small population to evaluate the ease-of-use of this portable system and to establish a viable testing protocol to evaluate a population of retinal cells that are believed to be involved in a variety of neurological disorders. Lastly, a non-obtrusive insole was developed to measure a subject's balance and gait in many different environments. This technology has been designed and is currently undergoing testing in the department of Orthopedic Surgery at the University of California Irvine Medical Center.

This book focuses on various aspects of research on ageing, including in relation to assistive technology; dignity of aging; how technology can support a greater understanding of the experience of physically aging and cognitive changes; mobility issues associated with the elderly; and emerging technologies. The 80+ age group represents an expanding market, with an estimated worth of £21.4 billion a year. Everyone is affected by this shift in demographics – we are getting older and may become carers – and we need to prepare ourselves and adjust our surroundings for longer life. Products, services and environments have been changing in response to the changing population. Presenting international design research to demonstrate the thinking and ideas shaping design, this book is a valuable resource for designers; product developers; employers; gerontologists; and medical, health and service providers; as well as everyone interested in aging.

The challenge of population aging requires innovative approaches to meet the needs of increasing numbers of older people. Emerging information and communication technologies (ICTs), such as pervasive computing and ambient assistive technology, have considerable potential for enhancing the quality of life of many older people by providing additional safety and security while also supporting mobility, independent living, and social participation. The proposed book will be a landmark publication in the area of technology and aging that will serve as a statement of the current state-of-the-art and as a pointer to directions for future research and emerging technologies, products, and services.

This book illustrates the rapid pace of development in intelligent assistive technology in recent years, and highlights some salient examples of using modern IT&C technologies to provide devices, systems and application software for persons with certain motor or cognitive disabilities. The book proposes both theoretical and practical approaches to intelligent assistive and emergent technologies used in healthcare for the elderly and patients with chronic diseases. Intelligent assistive technology (IAT) is currently being introduced and developed worldwide as an important tool for maintaining independence and high quality of life among community-living people with certain disabilities, and as a key enabler for the aging population. The book offers a valuable resource for students at technical, medical and general universities, but also for specialists working in various fields in which emergent technologies are being used to help people enjoy optimal quality of life.

The book consists of research contributions dealing with the crucial notion of situationalawareness within assistive smart systems emerging as an overarching concept. An appliedcomputer science character has been retained, whilst bringing to the fore research projectswhere formal knowledge representation and reasoning techniques have been demonstrated to be applicableto areas within the broader field of ambient intelligence and smart environments.pIOS Press is an international science, technical and medical publisher of high-quality books for academics, scientists, and professionals in all fields. pSome of the areas we publish

To explore how mobile technology can be employed to enhance the lives of older adults, the Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine commissioned 6 papers, which were presented at a workshop held on December 11 and 12, 2019. These papers review research on mobile technologies and aging, and highlight promising avenues for further research.