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Louisville cultivates innovation that benefits aging adults

Innovation featured in Louisville, Kentucky.  Louisville, known for the Kentucky Derby and Bourbon, has also emerged as one of the aging care headquarter cities in the US, with some of largest providers of aging care services -- like Kindred, Signature, Atria, as well as Humana and Delta Dental, among others.  This is the third year of the Louisville Innovation Summit – which provides a platform for the sponsoring organizations as well as a forum for startups and an innovation competition.  Announced by the city's mayor Greg Fischer at the event, Louisville was just named as an Age Friendly Communities by one of the event's sponsors, AARP, using the framework that originated by the World Health Organization  Among those exhibiting were Pharmerica, GrandCare, and LifeBio. The event also included some of the very (very) newest. All information is from the companies' or Summit website):


BrainCheck.  "BrainCheck is based on simple screen games, like many apps. The seven games involve nothing more than the usual moves: swiping, tilting, or identifying colors or words. We can assess 11 different measures of what’s happening under the hood in terms of what your brain is doing,” Eagleman said. As you play, the app digitally crunches the results – measuring skills like balance, reaction time, perception, coordination, or memory."  Learn more at BrainCheck.


Careband. "No matter the stage of the illness, anxiety and worry for caregivers is the same. It can be challenging to cope with. At night, you may jump out of bed at every sound worried that your dad has walked out of the house. You may stop going out to eat, because not watching him for a split second is so scary. You may be at work while being worried about his safety. CareBand is an innovative, patent-pending all in one safety bracelet for seniors that enables safety and quality of life as their illness progresses as well as peace of mind for caregivers and family members." Learn more at Careband.


Caregoals. "Caregoals gives you the confidence to have conversations that are relevant and meaningful to your patient’s life and care preferences. Measure, track and gain insight from patient data over time and predict future challenges that may face your patient. Caregoals provides you with the information to confidently initiate difficult conversations and give your patient a roadmap for successful outcomes." Learn more at Caregoals.


Constant Therapy. "Constant Therapy incorporates groundbreaking research on brain plasticity and rehabilitation from Boston University and other leading institutions. .Constant Therapy is also used in school settings to help Special Education professionals deliver therapy to students with learning disabilities. One of the Most Systematic and Comprehensive Brain Recovery and Rehabilitation Programs Available. Constant Therapy’s NeuroPerformanceTM Engine, a unique and advanced analytics engine, creates personalized exercises for patients, improving their cognitive, language, and learning skills continuously, and transforming the delivery of brain rehabilitation. Learn more at Constant Therapy.


Kytera. "Using advanced machine learning algorithms and our unique sensing technology, we dynamically learn the routine of the senior in the house and reliably detect deviations from the routine and distress situations. An advanced remote monitoring system for seniors who live at home, that automatically detects emergency & distress situations as they happen. The system is based on Contextual Activity Analysis technology and it consists of a wristband and easy-to-install sensors." Learn more at Kyteratech.com

Comments

Collecting massive amounts of data and tapping intelligent agents, even if the data are not in silos still does not solve the problem of building predictive systems that manage the key aspect of successful aging in place. Dementia is highly variable day to day, yet progressive. Capturing the fingerprint of an individual's dementia does not come from a room full of experts ot machine learning algorithms. The path to progress is complex and will be traversed by interdisciplinary teams, not computer scientists or clinicians, but a new breed of aging tech experts. If your group's expertise does not currently include an experienced players from psychologists to health care economists, you will spend years just trying to understand the problem.

The technology for aging in place is an especially tough nut to crack. Existing tools and emerging technologies make it seem more than feasible. But, the simplicity is more apparent than real. Companies that traditionally enter emerging markets are ill-equipped to make progress here. Academic groups have created model environments, published papers and even built devices, but they have not had impact. Knowledge translation is heavily encouraged, but certain, mostly-academic, problems cannot be explored on the small scale and corporate partners seem too risk averse for the long-term data acquisition that is needed. Cooperative funding sources are also too short-term. These problems will all be sorted out eventually, but not soon. Right now the independent-living market space is has a few devices and services that may be helpful, but nothing yet that can put a dent in the growing challenge of baby-boomer maturation.

Interesting that they are talking about technology that we still have not 'mastered' for instance AI. We need to ensure there is a suitable backbone ( yes hardware) in place to support all of these proposals. So many of the items are still dependent upon the cheap wifi router, creating a central point of failure for a healthcare support service. I would have thought that the litigious American society would have been backing away from this approach and looking to robust, dependable, future proof solutions?

I agree, technology definitely has its place in supporting independence but is ESSENTIAL that the person/s applying said technology really understand the needs and aspirations of the user and those who care for them. If the context for use is not accurately defined the solution cannot function effectively. It is a case of not just what it does it is also very much about what it means. As with all things AT.

Yay for Louisville
Retire there.

After our experience with the Hurricane, the beach isn't as appealing.

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