Technology To Grow Old With

Credit: Nigel Praities

Wearing a third age suit is helping designers understand the limitations of elderly people.

Engineers are already using novel techniques to assess more realistically how older people move about. To simulate what an older person may experience, designers at Skanska, a Swedish construction firm, are asked to wear a ‘Third Age Suit’ to road-test their designs. The whole-body suit has plastic and rubber areas that allow the wearer to feel what it’s like to have physical conditions such as arthritis, cataracts and a loss of hearing. Wearing the suit helps to quickly identify flaws and adapt building designs – like those for hospitals and care homes - to better cater to older people. “Most designers are relatively young,” explains Howard Jeffrey, a design manager at Skanska. “This suit was designed to help them appreciate the limitations of an older person.”

Robotic companions

Writing in Scientific American this month, Bill Gates predicted that a robot will soon be in every home. In Japan, a country with a rapidly ageing population, the next generation of robots has already been developed with companionship for older people in mind. For instance, the Wakamaru robot made by Mitsubishi went on sale in Japan in 2005. This robot can recognise faces, knows about 10,000 words, reminds you of appointments and even monitors your progress if you are ill. Trials using the Sony robot dog, Aibo, found that older people are initially sceptical but then warm to the cyber-hound. The use of robotic companions to help older people is an interesting proposition: “I think that robot pets may take off in the right environment,” says Miskelly. “But they might also increase the isolation of older people and should not be a substitute for carers’ visits.”