Eldercare Manager

Last week I had the opportunity to present a paper at the Human-Computer Interaction International Conference.  This was the 13th occurrence of the conference and the event was well attended by key researchers and companies concerned about how computers interact with people. 

Jean Bandos co-authored the paper titled "Impacting the Continuum of Caregiving through Innovation in Informatics: Senior Care Navigation System (SCANS)".  Other members of the SCANS team contributed, as well.  You won't find the paper in the conference proceedings however, due to Intellectual Property concerns with the conference publisher's copyright requirements.  In spite of those restrictions the paper and the presentation were well received.

What struck me about the conference on a general level was the amount of attention being given internationally to the challenges of older adults and senior health care.  Conference attendees came from China, Japan, UK, Germany, India, Spain, and many other places - representing some 49 countries in all.  Support for seniors living independently and dealing with challenges like immobility, well-being, and cognitive decline surfaced as a major sub-theme to the conference.  World wide researchers are examining how computers can help with aging parents.  

The specifics were wide ranging from topics like augmented navigation for assistive mobility devices to ontologies for adaptive user interfaces to cope with the specific needs of the elderly. 

I was genuinely encouraged that so many top brains are looking for ways to improve eldercare services.