Constructing a New Vision of Technology for Old Age

quality of life of older adults on the nation’s policy agenda—attaining the attention of the aging community as well as policymakers on the local, state and Federal levels of government. Technology and old age are not new to each other. The development and deployment of complex systems ranging from water and sewerage to health care and medical technology systems have enabled the longevity that many of us will enjoy (Coughlin, 2006). Likewise, innovations to assist the frail, disabled and institutionalized elderly have been borne from a long tradition of policy support in the field of assistive technologies touching multiple domains from communications to mobility. What is new is the sustained public attention and visibility now being given to the formal linkage between what is believed to be an unfathomable range of technology solutions and what is anticipated to be an equally vast range of societal challenges caused by aging. The 2005 White House Conference on Aging is the first significant and national policy event that begins to identify what technology can do, at what cost, and ultimately asks what is desirable for today’s and tomorrow’s older American? In this sense, the Conference begins a larger national dialogue that will lay the foundation for a national technology policy in support of an aging society