When last week's final BBC Reith Lecture by Professor Tom Kirkwood outlined a vision of a future in which new technology is harnessed to open up extra dimensions in older people's lives, it struck a resounding chord with the University of Dundee which is already well along the route to making that vision a reality. This weekend the University's work in this area received another significant boost with two grants worth over £400,000 pounds to develop a "smart room" to detect falls and a multimedia system to help with memory problems.
Professor Alan Newell, head of the University's Applied Computing Department which is creating the special £10 million IT research centre for the elderly, to be known as the Queen Mother Centenary Research Centre (QMCRC), welcomed the stance of the Reith lecturer and the opening up of a "national conversation" on how electronic technologies can enhance the lives of older people.
He said: "This is a much neglected area which has the potential to yield great benefits not just to individuals living out their lives but to the commercial world seeking to address the needs of an economically active and growing market. There are seven years left before pensioners outnumber children in the UK. The financial implications of this alone make major action essential. New technology has the potential to help people live independent lives for longer. The costs in developing it would easily be offset by savings in traditional forms of support and could yield access to new markets."
The first of the two latest projects under the QMCRC umbrella was this week granted £273,422 from the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council to develop a novel way for elderly people with dementia to be able to interact with others through using a multimedia reminiscence based system.
Dr Norman Alm of the Department of Applied Computing who will be working on the project with Gary Gowans of the School of Design explained: "When people have problems with short-term memory, as happens with dementia, this can make it difficult or impossible to carry on a satisfying conversation. Interestingly though, they still remember things from the longer term past.
"What is needed is a way to help the person to access these long-term memories and incorporate them into a conversation. Having a computer-based multi-media system to help with this will, we hope, give the person an easy to use but dynamic structure that prompts them successfully through an interaction."
The three year project will involve a software engineer and a professional designer who will create the system in collaboration with users.
The second "smart rooms" project - which receives £130,000 in funding - will investigate the use of advanced monitoring technology for elderly people living alone. A fall detector, an "extended period of inactivity" detector, and a detector of potentially worrying or unusual activity are among those to be developed. Led by Steve McKenna the team will work in collaboration with Servite Housing Association, and also with two theatre groups (Foxtrot and Dundee Rep) who will provide dramatised scenarios useful for designing and evaluating the proposed system.
The Queen Mother Centenary Research Centre will build on the ground breaking research which has earned the University's Department of Applied Computing a top "Grade 5" rating and recognition as one of the top three groups in this field in the world. With a reputation for creating systems and software - which have become commercially available - to assist people with communication and language difficulties, the department is regularly in the news for its work in applying state of the art technology to everyday problems faced by less able people. Research which could provide older people with the ability to communicate easily with family and friends all over the world, electronic memory joggers to remind the absent minded to take their pills and "smart rooms" which provide supportive environments for frail people and those with severe memory problems are among the many projects planned for the centre./ends
Contact Professor Alan Newell 01382 314144
Professor Norman Alm 01382 345596
Dr Steve McKenna 01382 344732