Assistive Technologies for the Aging Population

The United States is experiencing an unprecedented growth of its older adult population from now until 2050. The current health paradigm, which is focused on the provider model of health, is not going to be able to handle this growth and demand on the system. A health model where patients and other stakeholders participate in healthcare may be sustainable. However, these people need to be empowered, and technology can play a big role. Thus, it will become of increasing importance to discover the most appropriate way to integrate technology into daily living to maintain proper quality of life for this adult cohort. The work contained in this doctoral dissertation is driven by the needs of older adults, and represents examples of the types of technologies and design methods that will be needed to keeping older adults healthy. These medical technologies aim to address some the prevalent healthcare issues facing older adults in an appropriate and dignity preserving way. Three technologies will be discussed here, the first is a novel hearing technology that addresses many of the concerns older adults have with the presently available hearing devices. The device is located deep in the ear canal and recreates sounds with mechanical movements of the tympanic membrane. The DHD successfully recreated ossicular chain movements across the frequencies of human hearing while demonstrating controllable magnitude. Moreover, the device was validated in a short-term human clinical performance study where the DHD successfully recreated sound in healthy subject.The second is an exploratory non-invasive diagnostic system that analyzes a subject's pupil light reflex to gain insight to neurological health. This prototype was developed and validated on a small population to evaluate the ease-of-use of this portable system and to establish a viable testing protocol to evaluate a population of retinal cells that are believed to be involved in a variety of neurological disorders. Lastly, a non-obtrusive insole was developed to measure a subject's balance and gait in many different environments. This technology has been designed and is currently undergoing testing in the department of Orthopedic Surgery at the University of California Irvine Medical Center