afdeling technological innovations in elderly care: challenges for science and economy luc de witte

Afdeling

Technological innovations in

elderly care: challenges for science

and economy

Luc de Witte

Nursing and Care/HOPE

Outline• Elderly care is facing enormous challenges; new directions are needed

• Technology offers many (potential) possibilities, but also threats

• Much research is needed to ‘guide’ the careful use of technology

• This offers great challenges and opportunities for CAPHRI

• And, if done properly, also for industry and economy


Challenges for elderly care• The demand for elderly care will grow substantially

• Available resources (personnel and money) will not grow at the same pace: shortage will become the standard much more needs to be done with less

• Care will be delivered at home as much as possible (and more than today), with the professional in a more distant role

• Selfmanagement and informal care will develop further

• In intramural settings care will be more complex


• New approaches are needed: building on selfmanagement, informal care and support, multidisciplinary approaches

• Technology offers many potential solutions that may help meeting these challenges

• But: there is a huge gap between technology development and needs in care practice

• And there is only very little scientifically sound knowledge about how technology can be implemented, what the effects are, etc…

Challenges for CAPHRI


• There is a strong need for care-driven research in this field; that is why we initiated the CCTR: centre for care technology research)

….


Some examples: what can we expect?


Care at a distance


Monitoring: Quiet Care


CareRobotics


Robotics


Servicerobots


Socially assistive robots


A fearsome future…?


Or just great fun…?


CAPHRI projects today:• Care robotics

– The socially assistive robot PARO (started 1-9-2008)

– Arm support: McArm (started 1-4-2011)– Home service robot ACCOMPANY (starts 1-10-2011?)– (The play robot IROMEC (finished 1-5-2011))

• Monitoring technology: care at a distance– Monitoring frailty (started 1-1-2010)– Teletechnological support for elderly (started 1-

9-2011)

This is no science fiction


What is needed• Research to support development of care applications: user requirements (patient and caregiver), ethical issues, how can technology be embedded in care practice, etc…

• User evaluations: usability, safety issues, acceptance, etc…

• (Cost-)Effectiveness research• Implementation research • Educational and training programmes • ……


Conclusion• The future is today• This field has great scientific, practical and economic potential

• We are making initial but substantial steps towards a research programme in this field

• If we succeed to establisch CCTR (centre for care technology research) we can really ‘make a difference’

afdeling technological innovations in elderly care: challenges for science and economy luc de witte

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