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Pick-up robot
Assisting the elderly to stand after a fall.
What if a robot could be programmed to help frail and elderly people who fall in their home back onto their feet? University of South Australia PhD candidate Kalana Ishara
Withanage is leading a project that aims to make it a reality.
Withanage and colleagues are working on algorithms that will allow robots to autonomously move to a position with an unobstructed view of an elderly person who has fallen and assist them to get back up safely.
The team said a potential avenue for fall alerts may be through sensors in the home, such as surveillance cameras and microphones.
“ The robot could then find the fallen person and analyse their situation through remote heart rate monitoring and by asking questions, the answers to which will be processed by voice recognition,” Withanage said.“ If emergency care is not required, the robot could provide audio-visual prompts to guide the person to stand up safely.”
The algorithm would allow the robot to track an individual’ s progress as they stand up and, using its onboard cameras, provide corrective guidance if the person tries to undertake an unsafe movement.
“ Every year, elderly falls account for 80,000 injuries, 1000 fatalities and $ 800 million in hospital care,” Withanage said.
“ Sixty per cent of injuries and deaths are the result of repeated falls, which are preventable if the person had gotten up properly in the first instance.
“ Older people living alone cannot have a physiotherapist by their side at all times, so if they happen to fall, a robot guiding them to get up safely could be a life saver.”
The team said the research sets itself apart from previous studies into technological interventions through the algorithm that will allow the robot to track a person’ s movements and recognise activities in fall recovery such as lying down, rolling to the side and crawling.
“ Our research hopes to give the next generation of robots the eyes and judgment of a physiotherapist or physical trainer,” Withanage says.
“ Our ultimate goal is to develop a robot that really can provide physical assistance to a fallen person, and the way we are heading, that could be a reality in the not-so-distant future.”
The research is expected to be submitted in February 2018. ■
Marriage staves off dementia
Lifelong singletons and widowers are more likely than married people to develop dementia.
Marrying a significant other may lower a person’ s risk of developing dementia, a new study suggests.
The researchers drew from 15 studies published up to the end of 2016 that looked at the potential role of marital status on dementia risk, and involved more than 800,000 participants from Europe, North and South America, and Asia.
The findings, published in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, indicate that lifelong single people and widowers are at heightened risk of developing the disease, though the researchers acknowledged that single status may no longer be quite the health hazard it once seemed to be.
Lifelong singletons were 42 per cent more likely than married people to develop dementia – though this may have lessened over time as a lower risk was noted in the most recent studies – while widowed people were 20 per cent more likely to develop dementia than married people.
The team suggested that the end of a marriage through bereavement could act directly to increase dementia risk through the detrimental effect of stress on cognition.
One possible explanation for the link between marriage and dementia is that it might help both partners to have healthier lifestyles, including eating a healthy diet, and smoking and drinking less, the researchers said.
Professor Anthony Hannan from the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health at the University of Melbourne, echoed this point, and added that long-term social interaction, which is also known to be protective with respect to dementia, might also play a role.
“ However, it should be noted that this research involved observational studies in participants from the general population, and not long-term studies of those people during their lifespans, so cause and effect is difficult to determine,” Hannan added.
Bryce Vissel, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Technology Sydney, suggested other factors associated with being married that can be beneficial range from diet to sleep patterns, which are also known to impact dementia.
People who had divorced weren’ t found to be at any higher risk than married people, though the researchers said this might partly be due to the smaller numbers of divorcees in the studies.
Vissel said the key take-away from the study is that dementia risk is modifiable by lifestyle.
“[ This suggests that ] ultimately the Alzheimer’ s disease trajectory can be changed by lifestyle, which suggests the real hope that ultimately new therapies will be found that can also assist in this disease,” he said. ■
8 agedcareinsite. com. au