The AARP website has a nice collection of related articles ranging from automatic health monitoring devices, to robotic companionship, remote social awareness devices. It seems that these are the three big themes showing up in most of the literature.
Imagine rolling out of bed in the morning and dragging your sleepy self to the bathroom sink. You glance in the mirror, wince, open the medicine cabinet, and reach for a bottle of pills. But instead of grabbing your Lipitor, you take out the Tylenol with codeine. Suddenly a computerized voice tells you that you're making a mistake. That should wake you up -- and get you to reach for the right container.
Walkers are being developed that can steer away from obstacles and be retrieved by remote control, to prevent falls while trying to reach the walker. And Oregon Health & Science University is developing a cane that can detect gait, pressure and other warning signs, and sound an alarm when a person is in danger of falling. When used with sensors, it also could be programmed to beep when the user gets up out of a favorite chair, for instance, but forgets where he put his cane, or to alert caregivers when the user is in danger of falling.
A wristwatch that understands and responds to its wearer, and not the other way around. The Exmocare wristwatch is the first wearable wireless sensor system: It is not only the first-ever Bluetooth wristwatch, it is the first wearable sensor to simultaneously monitor so many physiological signals.
Exmocare's emotion algorithms are individualized for each wearer. The wristwatch takes into account the wearer's baseline reading and the readings from his or her last 48 hours, so that only meaningful changes trigger alerts.
Exmocare is also the first such device to integrate seamlessly into your Personal Area Network, and work for you 24 hours a day, no matter where you are.
[visit website]
This page contains all entries posted to Health, Technology, and Aging :: Fall 2007 in August 2006. They are listed from oldest to newest.
February 2007 is the next archive.
Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.