Digital Grandparents

Reported November 2007

ATLANTA (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- The United States is in the middle of a longevity revolution. The average person is expected to live to be 77. Boomers will hit 65 in 2011. Homes are going high tech to help us as we grow older

After 70 years of marriage Ross and Helen Tipton still make beautiful music together. They’re just two of more than 60 million seniors in America facing new technology head on!h

“We are very fortunate and lucky to have found each other,” Helen told Ivanhoe. “He’s learned computer at his age, well I think that’s a miracle.”

His computer may come in handy. Computer scientists and human factors psychologists at Georgia Tech have developed the 'technology coach.' It takes complicated tasks such as checking your glucose level and breaks it down step-by-step on the computer.

“On the box it says it’s as easy as 1-2-3 but when you fold out the list of instructions, it’s actually 53 steps,” Brian Jones, a computer researcher at Georgia Tech, told Ivanhoe.

The technology coach uses optical sensors on an overhead camera. It can tell if a person has picked up the wrong bottle, or if they are doing the steps out of order. The screen then reveals the problem and shows how to fix it. One day this technology may be used for more than just medicine. It could be applied to programming DVD players, TVs and answering machines.h

Another problem for seniors is remembering and taking their medication. This 'memory mirror' may be the answer.

“The memory mirror allows people to manage medication by showing them what they’ve done, what they need to do, but it does not force them to do it,” Elizabeth Mynatt, human centered computing expert at Georgia Tech, told Ivanhoe. It uses radio frequency barcodes to track what medication has been taken and when.

And new technology is not just keeping track of medication … but it’s also keeping track of people.

“One of the things we talked to older adults about, would you be accepting of having people monitor your home and one common response is, ‘well, if I know who is doing the monitoring.’” Wendy Rogers, PhD, professor of psychology at Georgia Tech, told Ivanhoe.

You can get something that looks like a portrait of Mom -- but it will actually say so much more. Butterflies around the portrait show how active she has been during the day. The bigger the butterfly, the more movement; the movement is picked up by sensors placed around the house. It can show up to 28 days of information; so family members can see patterns.

“You don’t just want to know how your Mom is doing on a particular day, but you’re concerned maybe there are a few days in a row where things seem pretty quiet, maybe your Mom is sick,” Rogers explained.

Just a few new ideas that will help seniors like Helen and Ross Tipton keep living and loving life.

The Human Factors and Ergonomics Society contributed to the information contained in the TV portion of this report.

Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:

Gregory Abowd, PhD, Co-Director
Aware Home
(404) 894-7512
abowd@cc.gatech.edu

Human Factors and Ergonomics Society
Santa Monica, CA 90406
(310) 394-1811
http://www.hfes.org

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