How can technology help us as we all get older (as we must), with the complications that ensue?
Tonight's presentations and panel discussion went an appreciable way to giving some pointers.
Comfortably introduced and concluded by Gary Hayes (IET and IMechE) and eloquently chaired by Prof. Anthony (Tony) Davies (IET and IEEE) it was a well-attended evening of interest and not a little entertainment...
Tony set the scene by reminding us of the "Seven Ages of Man" as dramatically summed up by Shakespeare and onwards in more recent history, with evocative images - I particularly liked the one from babyhood in a pushchair, through to old age in a wheelchair, with every age bending over a mobile phone…
Prof. Rachel McCrindle from Reading University continued the theme on Technologies to Support Independent Living. After some sobering and scary statistics on:
- our ageing population (1 in 5 alive now will live to 100 years in age…),
- the associated long-term conditions (such as strokes, dementia and visual impairment),
- the consequential increased demands in healthcare (with inevitable financial pressures) and
- the often-forgotten support needed by carers
Rachel took a look around the technologies that surround us, maybe everyday items in the home that can help us: VR headsets from ‘Cardboards’ up to expensive Hololens; Wearables; NFC on our smartphones.
Stroke and brain injury can impair language, movement and vision, requiring a number of therapies to aid recovery; however, it’s difficult to keep up the therapy when the patient gets home. The Kinect (part of the Microsoft Xbox home games console) can be used effectively to combine therapies (Physio/language/cognitive) through a series of games, with the results communicated back to the health professionals.
NFC tags can be used in many good ways:
- Giving back communication: pictograms can be recognised by a phone app so that it speaks the appropriate phrase
- Language Therapy: a picture cue can trigger a word to be read out, helping a user to recognise and repeat words
- Independence and carer peace of mind: the user can touch a tag to send a chosen text message to a carer; give a reminder (to do things, take medication); command an action (play music, switch an item on)
An application called VISAD can help people visualise what things would look like to a person with a sight disability; this can help to improve design, to audit installations or aid empathy.
There’s just so much affordable tech available to help.
Andrew Cowen, from The Future Care (UK) Ltd, showed us why he is nicknamed the Chief Disrupter with his section titled “Pull Your Socks Up”.
I struggled to keep pace with all the ideas - it was so exciting.
We need to change our thinking, to use our imagination and be creative; aim for innovation with a human touch; focusing on wearable self-managed disruptive health technology.
We all rose to the fun challenge of imagining how a loo roll tube could solve the problem of putting one's socks on (many of us have experienced just how hard that task can be!). The three people chosen to give their ideas were those who had opened the sealed bag in advance – they had shown themselves to be disrupters by doing something before being instructed to do so. So many off-the-wall ideas.
Andrew ran through many innovative technologies, that could spawn more useful applications
- Smart fabric: e.g. a huggy shirt that can hug someone by command from a long way away
- Thought driven opacity (makes a blouse see-through)
- Bionic suits
- Programmable polymers
- Nano technology to fight cancer etc
- Wearable algorithms and machine learning are now powerful disruptive medical aids
- Personalised Medicine
- Ecto skeletal to help left heavy stuff
We don't have to end up confined to wheelchairs. We can plug our brains into technology; maybe have a robotic eye or reconnect the brain to counter dementia? Will we be human robots or robotic humans?
I learnt:
- Don't be afraid of having ideas and making mistakes: these can inspire further thoughts of your own or others.
- We can improve; “Can't” is not allowed!
In the Panel Discussion and Q&A, it was clear that the speakers had inspired us to think.
- We must prevent the Digital Divide; Tech must not only be available to those who have crossed it
- A person should drive the technology they need.
- The tech should pre-empt or detect needs. Don't rely on pushing a button. Always-on tech makes it easier eg Alexa
- Our standard phones have vast amount of tech: just think what you can do with it.
- How does one find out that some technology is available? Not easy to commercialise an invention to a wider user base.
- Counter hearing impairment with a phone app algorithm to boost the missing frequencies, volume etc
%u200BThere was a real buzz afterwards in the networking reception, as attendees enthusiastically continued the discussions.