The Schlegel-UW Research Institute for Aging (RIA) hosted a community conversation on June 23 on how technology changes how people age at the Waterloo Community Pavillion.
The event featured three panelists who each presented their research regarding artificial intelligence’s role in aging and answered questions during the Q&A panel and social hour. There were also exhibits and displays of the panelists’ research and the Kitchener Tech Club to answer the attendees’ tech questions.
The RIA is a non-profit organization driving research and innovation to improve the quality of life for older adults by looking at the senior care workforce and ensuring that care partners are equipped with the latest information and resources they need. They are also committed to changing the medicalized and negative perceptions regarding aging.
Cosmin Munteanu, Schlegel research chair in technology for healthy aging and associate professor in systems design engineering at UW, opened the event with his presentation that gave an overview of AI and how it manifests in people’s daily lives, through aging in place technology — in the form of smart devices like automated doorbells — and mobile applications and the concerns surrounding this prevalence.
He showcased his students’ research and studies which ranged from using AI voice assistants to capture family stories, privacy concerns regarding AI’s collection of data, to trust levels regarding the use of AI in personal banking.
Following his presentation, is Tejal Patel, research chair in medication management and aging and clinical associate professor at UW, who tackled how AI can support older adults in managing their medication. She emphasized a design problem which causes 50 per cent of medications to not be taken as prescribed. “I worked as a pharmacist for a long time… [s]ometimes when we are trying to solve a problem, we’re actually creating more problems because we don’t realize that whatever was designed was not designed for the person that we’re trying to solve the problem for,” she stressed.
Her research focuses on how medication management at home can be more effective. She highlighted technological solutions, which range from electronic and automated dispensers, which dispense pills at the right time to smart packaging which use embedded sensors to detect when a medication package was opened, allowing for the collection of data that doctors, pharmacists, and caregivers can use to predict health outcomes and make necessary adjustments.
The final panelist was Moojan Ghafurian, an associate professor in systems design engineering at UW, who shared her work on social robots. She discussed how these robots are capable of interacting with humans through emotions and behaviour, and can be personalized to meet individual needs through both verbal and non-verbal interactions. They have been used in many application areas within healthcare and training.
She also brought up the negative attitude that some older adults have towards these robots, which can be rooted in their fear of these machines taking over humans, exacerbated by movies that depict robots as threatening entities, and privacy concerns.
Gerbrine Genis-Walker, one of the attendees, said she appreciated the event. “People talk amongst themselves… so if you all come to this, then you get things to talk about and discuss,” she said. “So, it could reduce fear if people are a bit afraid of new technologies.”
Another attendee, Ron Rhodes, also expressed his approval of the event. “It opens up your eyes. It’s a great learning event, especially for older people. We’re supposed to keep active, mentally, and that helps,” he said.
The panelists emphasized the importance of these kinds of events in connecting with the elderly community to drive their research and design solutions. Munteanu stressed, “[Without community engagement], all of our research just sits on a shelf. Maybe it’s read. It’s cited by other students, but it never gets out into the real world.” Patel also highlighted, “[A]s a clinician, I get tunnel vision… and it’s when I listen to these individuals that I find that they have such creative solutions that I never thought about.”
