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• GatePal - A context-aware airport guide app for all (Jon Sanford, Yilin Elaine Liu, Alex Carroll, & Xi Chen) 
• MS Assistant - A Health and Wellness Self-Management App for Individuals Aging with Multiple Sclerosis (Jon Sanford, Ljilja Ruzic Kascak)
• ALIGN - Application for Locational Intelligence and Geospatial Navigation (Jon Sanford, Subhrajit Guhathakurta, Gordon Zhang, Bhanu Verma, Sarah Melgen, Shambhavi Mahajan, Abbinayaa Subramanian, & Yilin Elaine Liu)
• Cognitive Training Game (Maribeth Gandy Coleman, Laura Levy, Rob Solomon & Dave Byrd)
• SmartBathroom (Jon Sanford, Brian Jones, Peter Presti, Brad Fain, Su Jin Lee, Harshal Mahajan, Prasanna Natarajan, & Shambhavi Mahajan)
• A Mobile Application to Measure Gait Speed (Brian Jones, David Byrd, Akhil Oswal, & Youssef Asaad)

TechSAge RERC is a five-year, multidisciplinary research center dedicated to understanding the needs of, and developing supportive technologies for, individuals aging with long-term impairments. Sponsored by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR), TechSAge is currently in year 4 of 5 of the center. Keeping with the tradition of other RERCs, the TechSAge team coordinated a State of the Science Conference to showcase the cutting-edge research and development on technologies for aging with disability from Georgia Tech and beyond.

The conference kicked off with a keynote lecture by Michelle Putnam, Professor of Social Work at Simmons College, who is a leading researcher on the intersection of aging & disability policy. Afterward, attendees participated in open house reception showcasing aging & disability projects at Georgia Tech. Posters, demos, and more were on display from the following organizations: RERC TechSAge, CATEA (Center for Assistive Technology & Environmental Access), AMAC Accessibility Solutions & Research Center, Aware Home Research Initiative, HFA (Human Factors and Aging) Lab, and Wireless RERC. Attendees also had the chance to take a Stinger Shuttle for a tour of Georgia Tech’s Aware Home.

Day 2 began with a special Design and Technologies for Healthy Aging (DATHA) Talk Event: “State of the Science in Technologies to Support Successful Aging with Disability”. This morning session included two tracks focused on personal technologies (e.g., wearables, assistive robots, gaming) and environmental technologies (e.g., embedded technologies, wayfinding, smart homes and communities).  Speakers and panelists included prominent researchers & professionals in personal and environmental technologies for aging and disability including Georgia Tech faculty Beth Mynatt, Wayne Li, and Ayanna Howard as well as representatives from the Atlanta Regional Commission, Northwestern University, Simon Fraser University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

TechSAge investigators and invited participants convened in the afternoon for breakout groups, with the goal of identifying next steps for the RERC. Continuing with the theme of the day, breakout groups were focused on identifying important problem areas for people aging with disability and potential solutions that incorporate personal & environmental technologies. The discussion further illuminated the need for integrated technology solutions that are accessible and customizable to support this population. Emerging ideas from this dynamic brainstorming session and the State of the Science conference as a whole are being carried forward to set the research agenda for TechSAge II. Efforts are underway to prepare for the competitive grant renewal in 2018.

Recordings of the State of the Science conference presentations are archived on the TechSAge website here: http://techsage.gatech.edu/videos

As a finalist for the award, TechSAge was highlighted for its innovations in making environments more accessible to aging populations, and in creating a more user-friendly world—no matter what our abilities or age.

Other honorees included the Clarkston Community Center Senior Refugee Program, Amy’s Place, and award winner Dr. Monica Parker, who was recognized for her community outreach through Emory’s centers on Alzheimer’s Disease Research and Brain Health.

Held at the Atlanta History Center, the Groundbreaker Awards program was launched in 2012 with the goal of honoring the people and projects that make Atlanta a better place to live. The 12 honorees were recognized for meeting the challenges posed by aging head-on, with ingenuity, purpose, and compassion.

     Under the direction of Associate Professor Claudia B. Rebola, the 2016 TechSAge Design Competition was launched in October 2015 and sought to inspire talented designers to develop innovative, technology-enabled design solutions for the aging population. In Phase II of the competition, semi-finalists were awarded $300 to further develop their prototype and test the concepts with older adults. Posters, videos, and details for each project were exhibited at the 2016 TechSAge Advisory Board Meeting ay Georgia Tech. The judging was based on the criteria of promoting independence, integration, implementation, inspiration, and progression through universal design. The following designs earned the top three places:

1st place- The top prize ($1500) was awarded to Dex, a smart footcare system designed to promote exercise and health management for people with diabetes. The Dex system features pressure sensitive shoe insoles that interact with a smart phone, enabling the user to monitor their foot pressure and play various exergames.  

2nd place- CommuniTea, a connected scheduling board for older adults, was awarded second place ($1000). The peg board tablet offers a simple, connected way for people to plan meeting arrangements based on their activities, skills and interests.

3rd place- An airport wayfinding app for senior travelers, known as GatePal, took home third place ($500). Gatepal provides step-by-step instructions for users to successfully navigate the airport and complete key tasks, from checking in, locating their gate, and finding their luggage. GatePal is universally designed so that older adults with different functional abilities are able to use this app at their own pace and in their preferred way.

     “We are extremely happy with the results of the competition’s first year,” said Dr. Rebola. “We had the participation of over 36 individuals, representing 14 international schools as well as business entities”. With its success and impact, the center is preparing for the second TechSAge Design Competition 2017, expected to launch in July of this year.

Click to read the full article "Georgia Tech Center Focuses on the Needs of Aging, Disabled Adults" 

Read the full article “Hi. How Can I Help You?” here: http://www.rh.gatech.edu/features/hi-how-can-i-help-you

TechSAge investigators Theodore M. Johnson, Brian Jones, and Carolyn Clevenger received the award for their project titled, “Assessing Gait speed to Inform fraiLty Evaluation (AGILE)”, which is related to their TechSAge project D1.3, “A Mobile Application to Measure Gait Speed”.

People with long-term disabilities and chronic conditions will encounter a unique set of challenges as they get older. But that doesn’t mean they can’t age successfully and safely.

The Georgia Institute of Technology has received a five-year $4.6 million grant to increase understanding of the aging process for people with disabilities and use data gleaned from the study to develop technologies that will benefit them and others.

The grant from the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research in the Department of Education will support the interdisciplinary Center on Technologies to Support Successful Aging with Disability (RERC TechSAge).

“This will serve as a major catalyst for understanding the issues at work as well as developing technologies to be used in homes and our communities,” said Professor Jon Sanford, the lead principal investigator who is also director of the Center for Assistive Technology and Environmental Access (CATEA). “We are focusing on certain groups but this will be useful for all of society.”

The project classifies disabilities as low vision or blind; deaf or hard of hearing; and mobility limitation, such as using a wheelchair or walker. It focuses primarily on adults 50 and older.

“This is an emerging population and we aim to get a full understanding of their different needs,” said Professor Wendy Rogers, a co-principal investigator.

Researchers will assess needs as they relate to work, home, transportation and health care, said Rogers, who leads Georgia Tech’s Human Factors and Aging Laboratory. They will conduct surveys, hold structured interviews and observe participants in different settings.

Technology projects will build on these data. Researchers expect robots will remotely monitor and perform tasks for individuals with disabilities as they age.

Tracy Mitzner, the other co-principal investigator and associate director of the Human Factors and Aging Laboratory, will investigate how telerobotics can support older adults with disabilities by allowing them to remain active and improve their physical strength. It would also help aging adults remain social, Mitzner said.

Another project is expected to result in open source software and hardware that enables robots to better assist people with disabilities as they age, said Charlie Kemp, director of the Healthcare Robotics Lab at Georgia Tech.

Kemp’s project will continue his collaboration with Henry and Jane Evans. Henry Evans lives with quadriplegia. Their original collaboration as part of the Robots for Humanity project resulted in Evans briefly using a mobile robot to shave and scratch his face, pull a blanket over himself and perform other tasks.

In all, the vast project will rely on expertise from multiple research centers at Georgia Tech. In addition to CATEA, the School of Psychology and the Healthcare Robotics Lab, those involved include: the Institute for People and Technology, Aware Home Research Initiative, School of Industrial Design, Center for Geographic Information Systems, Alternative Media Access Center, Interactive Media Technology Center, Human-Centered Computing, the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Georgia Tech Research Institute.

Researchers from the Emory Center for Health in Aging and the University of South Carolina will also participate.