THAW Event Summary: Can Technology Help Older People Lead a Healthier and Happy Life?

May 27^th 2015 marked the first Technology for Healthy Ageing and Wellbeing (THAW) event bringing together the general public with those in the NHS, councils, charities and industry to discuss if technology could be used to help older people to lead happier healthier lives.

The day started with Professor Arlene Astell giving a short presentation on the THAW network and its objectives.

Shortly after, the room was briefed on its first activity of the day: “Technology Interaction”. Attendees were asked to get into pairs and to choose an item of technology from their table. They were then given 10 minutes to learn how to use the item before giving feeding back to the table on how they found this and what they thought about the product (i.e., who would use it; its good and bad points and so forth). A spokesperson from each table was then nominated to give feedback to the audience.

Tables reported that some devices lacked readable print; featured confusing technical jargon; had no descriptive elements for easily identification and were not suitable for those with dexterity issues. Others, on the other hand, reported some items as being straight forward, logical and easy to use.

At this point, there was a lunch break; after which all three of the THAW students gave presentations on their research.

Jacob Andrews presented a talk: “Can we use technology to detect the early signs of mental health difficulties in older adults?”

David Clayton gave a presentation on: “Exploring the uses of technology by and for older people to overcome loneliness and social isolation Social Care Interventions and Self-help Strategies”

Matthew Bennion’s presentation topic was: “Can digital devices capable of reading emotion make the delivery of digital therapy more user-friendly and acceptable to older adults?”

Once the talks had finished, the room was briefed on the second activity “Scavenger Hunt”.  Multiple apps and technologies relating to the three THAW projects were placed around the room. Participants were asked to take a sheet and go to each activity station, filling in details relating to each experience as they moved around.   Once completed, participants were instructed to head back to their seat and answer a further three questions at the end of the form.

Participants at the event experimenting with technology and feeding back to one another.

Activities included:

• MoodPanda - A website that helps people to track their mood and receive support from other users when they are feeling down.

• Lexulous – An online word game that can be played alone, with friends, other players, individually or against the computer.

• Mr Mood - An application that allows users to track their mood over time.

• Social Networks for older adults - A selection of social networks tailored to older adults including: SeniorChatters, Elefriends, Buzz50, Silver Surfers, and Giving & Getting.

• Mantarobots - A telepresence robot that allows remote users to connect to audio/video conferences and to move around looking up/down, left and right in order to interact with other people and the environment the robot is located

All in all the event was a huge success and received lots of positive feedback, if you’d like to be involved in future THAW events, please contact Matthew Bennion by clicking here.

Written by Matthew Bennion

RATs go to Toronto

Mark Hawley and Richard France recently visited a number of research groups in Toronto. The purpose of this visit was to establish links with leading international researchers and look at some of the newly established facilities.

The first visit was with Geoff Fernie and his team at Toronto Rehab - a leading rehabilitation sciences centre with impressive research laboratories within the new iDAPT centre. The Challenging Environment Assessment Lab features a motion simulator base with a variety of attachable labs - e.g. WinterLab, StreetLab or StairLab - which mimic some of the everyday challenges faced by older people, people with disabilities or those undergoing rehabilitation. The Home Lab replicates a real world home environment for researchers to develop new solutions to enable independent living. This was of particular interest to Sheffield, as we will be establishing a similar facility within the Centre for Assistive Technology and Digital Healthcare.

 

The Challenging Environment  Assessment Lab

 Further visits were held with researchers at Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital. Tom Chau heads up the PRISM lab where the focus is developing new technologies to assist children and young people with disabilities and special needs. Tom’s group put on a number of impressive demonstrations of new access technologies to enable better communication, computer use and creative expression. Elaine Biddiss’s research is focused on enabling disabled children to participate more fully in music, arts and physical activity. A recent project included the design and development of an interactive display for the waiting area at the hospital (watch a great video about this on Elaine’s website).

A final visit with Joe Cafazzo at the Centre for Global eHealth Innovation concluded the trip. Researchers within the Healthcare Human Factors Group are working on new mobile technologies to enable self-care, such as Bant, a smartphone app to facilitate self-management of diabetes.

Working in the Centre for Assitive Technology and Digital Healthcare

As part of our new Centre for Assistive Technology and Digital Healthcare, we are looking to recruit a number of new members of staff to support our work in this area.

The Centre will be a focus for research into technology for people with disabilities,
older people and people with long-term conditions. It will bring together and co-
ordinate the input of more than 30 research and clinical scientists with a range of expertise
in healthcare, engineering, social science and science. Research areas include assisted living,
assistive technology, telehealth, telecare and telerehabilitation. Research expertise covers the
spectrum from identifying user needs, engineering research for the development of new
technologies, evaluation of new technologies and prototypes in a new innovative ‘living lab’
environment, through to large-scale trials and implementation in practice.

The Centre is establishing a core research team comprising two Chairs, one Lectureship, two
Research Fellows and two PhD studentships. At the moment, we're recruiting a Chair in Assistive Technology and Digital Healthcare to be based in Computer Science, a Chair in Assistive Technology and Digital Healthcare to be based inScHARR, and a Lecturer in Assistive Technology and Digital Healthcare to be based in Psychology.

To find out more about the requirements of these jobs, please use the University of Sheffield's current vacancies pages. These vacancies close on 12th October 2012.

Introducing: Richard France, our new Centre Development Manager

Richard France

I started on 1^st April 2012 in the role of Centre Development Manager at the new Centre forAssistive Technology and Digital Healthcare. The RAT blog has previously given an overview of the new Centre, which has received an investment of £1.3M from the Vice Chancellor’s Strategic Development Fund.

My background cuts across research, commercialisation and knowledge exchange, predominantly at the life science – engineering interface. I obtained my degree and PhD at Sheffield in materials science and then spent over 10 years as a researcher in the area of biomaterials and tissue engineering. This included time as an academic researcher before moving into industry, working for a spinout company on the development of new scaffold systems for tissue repair and novel in-vitro assays for drug testing.

In 2007, I moved back to the University of Sheffield to work in knowledge exchange, first setting up and managing the N8 METRC Centre and then managing the University’s EPSRC Knowledge Transfer Account.

My role as Centre Development Manager involves managing day-to-day activities for the Centre. Initially this includes coordinating the recruitment of new academic staff, meeting with the 30+ Centre members to understand their research interests and working up a business case for the ‘Living Lab’ – a real world home environment for the evaluation of new technologies.

[written by Richard France]

Centre for Assistive Technology and Digital Healthcare to be established by University of Sheffield

One of the exciting announcements that we can make in 2012 is that The University of Sheffield is establishing a Centre for Assistive Technology and Digital Healthcare. This will be a focus for research into technology for people with disabilities, older people and people with long-term conditions.

The Centre will bring together and co-ordinate the input of more than 30 research and clinical scientists with a range of expertise in healthcare, engineering, social science and science, and will additionally invest substantially in a dedicated multi-disciplinary research team working within an innovative ‘living lab’ environment. The Centre will work closely with industry, with the NHS, social care organisations and with users.

The Centre will specialise in areas of personalised healthcare and personal independence. The aim being to assist people to live independently at home for longer without need for hospitalisation or care institutionalisation. Areas covered include assisted living, assistive technology, telehealth, telemonitoring, telecare and telerehabilitation. The Centre encompasses expertise and experience to cover activities across the spectrum, including: identifying healthcare and user needs; carrying out research into future technology; user-centred design and development of prototypes; evaluation in ‘living lab’ and patient/user groups; large-scale trials and health economics; supporting and studying implementation in the NHS.