I want to grow old in my own home where everything is familiar and comforting. I can do so if I am connected to my family and other support services 24 hours a day. If it happens that I need hospital or long-term care, I want to be able to rely on health professionals who specialize in aging and a system designed to meet my particular needs.
Aging in the 21st Century
That is a fair summary of how many of today’s older adults, members of the most educated and vocal group of their kind in history, feel about aging. To borrow from poet Dylan Thomas, they will not go gently into that final chapter of life without the help of technologies adapted to their needs and an integrated network of health and wellness services available when and where they need them.
These are high expectations in economically difficult times, with a rapidly growing aging population (in Canada, seniors over 100 are the fastest growing demographic age group), a strained tax base, and a declining supply of health-care professionals. Nevertheless, as a pioneer of elder care in the last century, Baycrest is embracing these 21st century challenges with an ambitious new plan to lead the world in innovative solutions.
Central to that plan is engaging the best minds in coming up with these solutions.
To that end, Baycrest is launching two new entities: an innovation incubator and a life experience lab, says Bianca Stern, who is leading the innovation, technology and design initiative.
“The incubator will bring together, in person and through virtual connection, leading thinkers from a range of disciplines including health care, arts and design, architecture, anthropology, engineering, and others – all working to transform the aging experience.”
The incubator will also include the input of end users (seniors and their families, for example) and commercial partners to help develop and market any viable products or processes that may result from the collective collaboration.
Because it provides both highly-specialized programs in a continuum of care and leading-edge neuroscience, Baycrest is itself a “living laboratory,” an ideal place to test and validate its own innovations along with those of others.
Innovation Based on Real Life Experiences
Informing the work of the innovation incubator will be data gathered in the life experience lab. “The lab will use video, focus groups, interviews and other methods to gather in-depth information about the lived experience of seniors, their families and caregivers,” says Stern. “The aim is to gain a better understanding of the wants, needs, preferences, strengths and challenges of older adults, from basic self-care and home management tasks to the challenge of staying connected to the community. In this way we can learn how elders interact with their environments, utilize shared and private spaces, care for body and mind, and stay in touch with friends and with the world. The lab will also allow us to pilot new ideas and products, and fine-tune their design with users in real time.”
New and emerging technologies that might help elders age safely at home and continue to live meaningful lives will be explored. For example, Baycrest will be installing and testing a home monitoring system that, among other features, will track whether Dad has taken his medication at the appointed hour, or whether Mom has shown up in the kitchen at her usual time to make lunch. Family members and other caregivers will be kept informed from a distance using PCs or mobile devices with Internet access, and be alerted if something needs their attention at home.
The innovation incubator and life experience lab will also explore how different providers, such as health organizations, government services, community centres and clinics, might work in synergy to support wellness. They will “act as a catalyst for transformative solutions that will influence care practices, government policies on aging, and spark more scientific research into healthy aging,” Stern says.
Baycrest is building on its existing partnerships – including projects with the Ontario College of Art & Design and the University of Toronto – as well as looking to partner with leading companies such as Cisco Systems – to develop, validate and make widely available solutions to the challenges and opportunities posed by a generation of savvy older adults who expect, with good reason, to live long, healthy and productive lives, in their own homes, supported by customized technology and a new approach to community-based care.
When Memory Fails
Making Clever Use of the Smart Phone
Severe memory impairment – whether caused by a motorcycle accident, a stroke, the removal of a brain tumour, or another type of brain injury – creates crippling problems for people at work, at home, in school, and in their social interactions.
Baycrest’s ground-breaking Memory Link program shines a welcome light on the darkness experienced by those devastated by profound memory loss. Adapted to treat mild cognitive impairment, the program also brings relief and hope to people at increased risk for Alzheimer’s disease.
Memory Link is one example of an innovative approach to brain health that has earned Baycrest an international reputation for leadership in an area of growing importance worldwide.
It teaches individuals facing these problems how to use hand-held communication devices, such as smart phones, as memory aids. Patients learn how to program the devices to trigger a series of reminders that compensate for the loss and help them live more normal lives.
The program is a clever marriage of smart phone technology and a training method built on a sciencebased understanding of how multiple memory systems work, and how injury to one can be compensated for by another. By focusing on non-conscious brain systems through a repetitive sequence of learned behaviours, patients’ preserved “procedural” memory allows them to learn new things, even as their impaired “episodic” (or conscious) memory causes them to forget why they came to Baycrest that day.
“You can throw almost any new device at us and we can train people how to use it,” says clinical neuropsychologist Dr. Brian Richards, founder and director of Memory Link. He compares it to teaching a child how to ride a bike. “You run along behind them, holding them up. At some point you let go and they are riding by themselves. They’re never going to remember all the times you took them out to practice.”
Added Dimensions
Memory Link gives those suffering from profound memory loss what they need most, namely the skills to be able to track and retrieve practical information – appointments, reminders to perform tasks, and so on – well enough to function independently. However, Dr. Richards says some of his clients would also like to be able to recapture feelings associated with memories, especially around significant events in their lives.
If a grandchild is getting married, for example, they can record in their phones ahead of time details like time and place, information they can retrieve later. But they would also like to re-experience the emotions they felt that day – emotions that are lost when memory is severely impaired.
When Dr. Richards mentioned this potential new application for the smart phone to artist and film maker Judith Doyle while he was treating her friend for memory loss due to a motorcycle accident, she was intrigued by the idea and said she could help. “That’s what artists do; they convey emotion in non-linguistic ways,” says Dr. Richards.
In January, Doyle, who is chair of the Integrated Media Program at the Ontario College of Art & Design, will begin an artist–in-residence sabbatical at Baycrest where she will work with Dr. Richards, who lectures on memory at OCAD. Doyle’s contribution to the project will be to develop prototypes for computers, video games and other everyday technologies to represent the emotional dimension of memory so that amnesiacs can recall their feelings.
As a way to bring the benefits of the program to others across Ontario and beyond, Dr. Richards envisages a “Memory Link network” with Baycrest as the hub for research and design. “As we learn more about memory, we can incorporate that into the program and set up Memory Link affiliates in facilities across the province – webbased so we can connect with and train those who will be delivering our program.
Baycrest Teams with U of T to build a "Social" Robot
A team of psychologists, occupational therapists and scientists at Baycrest has joined forces with researchers in mechanical engineering at the University of Toronto to explore the use of robotic technologies that would enhance quality of life for cognitively impaired seniors living in long-term care facilities.
The partnership has resulted in a “social” robot named Brian that will be tested in Baycrest’s Apotex Centre, Jewish Home for the Aged early next year.
Brian will function like a motivational coach for residents of one of the units in the nursing home that cares for the cognitively impaired. He will provide them with verbal and social cues in a gentle but clear voice, encouraging them as they engage in recreational activities and reminding them to attend appointments and programs.
Brian’s creators emphasize that he is not designed to replace staff . His purpose is simply to “motivate” nursing home residents who can benefit from environmental cueing.
“As a person becomes more cognitively impaired, he or she relies much more on their environment as a support for continued life engagement,” said Baycrest’s Bianca Stern.
The project involved seniors in the design process to determine what qualities they would find most useful in a social robot.
Skype Keeps Families in Touch
Aaron is a resident of the Apotex Centre, Jewish Home for the Aged at Baycrest. When his wife, Joyce, broke her hip and was unable to continue her daily visits, Skype came to the rescue.
The couple was able to stay in touch – she from a convalescent home – using a technology that provides free long-distance videoconferencing over the Internet. The couple also uses Skype for virtual visits with their daughter in Washington and other relatives in Israel.
A growing number of Baycrest residents are becoming regular Skype users. It is an easy, economical program that uses computers linked to the Internet, inexpensive web cameras and microphones.
Skype is an ideal medium for residents to engage in a face-to-face conversation in “real time,” see their children and grandchildren and even “attend” a special event like a family dinner or a wedding.
Aging in the 21st Century
Arts for life
Hitting the Right Note
Bridging Time
Finding a Voice on Stage
A Gentle Pace