The project will combine emergent technologies to assess home-based tasks, identify weaknesses, and provide tailored motivation for an active lifestyle.
carers and potential users in the co-production of the technology.
The study aims to reduce the impact of frailty in UK care and health system. NHS England has estimated that 3% of aged 65 and older are severely frail and another 12% are moderately frail, which means a total of about 1.8 million people in the UK. The incidence and prevalence of frailty are having a profound impact on all aspects of the UK economy and society.
Research in machine intelligence and healthcare sensor technologies will be guided by stakeholders and users to create a user-friendly platform specifically designed to offer assistance to older adults at risk of frailty. The platform will be tailored to older adults needs to overcome the cognitive and physical barriers to increase acceptability and use of these new technologies among this population.
Specifically, the project will study the design of a smart integrated system that can provide continuous tailored support to older adults to achieve and maintain an active and healthy lifestyle. The system intelligently merges information from wearable and nearable sensors with the friendly multimodal interaction (audio-visual, movement, gesture, and touch) of an affordable social robot to assess the physical and cognitive functions of the user at home. Furthermore, the system can provide an objective and comprehensive assessment on the user frailty status to practitioners and carers to inform personalised quality care.
Project Start: 01/09/2022
Project End: 29/02/2024
