The aim of this project is to collaborate with the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PM&R) and University of Michigan (UM) Hospitals to develop a multidisciplinary engineering capstone design course focusing on Geriatric Assistive Devices and Systems (GADS). The rapidly-aging societies of the developed world present many new engineering opportunities for the 21st century. The current layout of living spaces, the designs of furniture (beds, chairs, tables, sofas, etc.), and even the means of using most household devices (for cooking, bathing, entertainment, storage, etc.) are all targeted at healthy, mobile adults, often ignoring the aged and/or disabled individuals who often live alone and have limited mobility. To compound the problem, there is a lack of system-level design for geriatric assistive devices on the market today; meaning devices are often designed without considering their integration into an overall assistive framework for an entire household, which can lead to unmet needs or incompatibility between devices. The current development of geriatric assistive devices is aimed in two extremes. On one end are systems designed to be general-purpose: to address as many needs as possible with one device. Work here has focused on complicated and expensive robotic systems, such as the HAL exoskeleton (by Cyberdyne), and the PaPeRo (by NEC) and ASIMO (by Honda) robots, which are capable of performing tasks autonomously. The other extreme seen in geriatric assistive device development contains simple, low cost products that have very limited functionality. Devices in this realm include plastic benches for showering, or adhesive handles for gripping phones.
Intellectual merit: of this project include advancing design and therapeutic sciences, and applying the knowledge gained in basic research of geriatric studies towards creating devices that will benefit healthcare and quality of life for seniors. The project can have a great impact in promoting collaboration between engineering and physical medicine and rehabilitation. Apart from the elderly, caregivers, including occupational and physical therapists, can benefit from this project as well. They have the opportunity to communicate their needs to engineers and work together with them to create new assistive devices and systems. We also plan to expose the GADS class to the community via the Turner Senior Resource Center in UM Geriatric Center. This project will work in close collaboration with two UM PM&R co-PI, Prof. Dr. Mark Ziadeh and consultant Prof. Susan Murphy as well as occupational and physical therapists at UM Hospitals. This proposal is thus a unique collaboration among an engineering faculty member, a MD in geriatric rehabilitation, and a ScD in therapeutic studies, all working together in the creation of new frontier in the design of GADS.
Broader Impacts: The goal of this project is to create specialized, simple, and affordable mechatronic devices that perform very specific household tasks. The needs of aging adults with limited vision, mobility, sensation, and cognition will be addressed. Student teams will work on a collaborative cluster of projects for five major rooms of a living space: the bathroom, the bedroom, the kitchen, the garage, and the living room. The instructor will coordinate among projects to create a coherent system to improve the quality of life of the aging population across the entire living space. This integrative approach to the projects, where each becomes part of an overall system, is a critical aspect of this project course. At the end of this five-year project, a GADS demo area will be built to showcase the integration of the team-designed geriatric assistive devices into a system. Students are required to interview aging adults and occupational and physical therapists working with aging adults to identify specific needs in their project area, work closely with PM&R faculty, and outreach to the community through the Turner Senior Resource Center of the UM Geriatric Center.
