healthy ageing

Residents from Buitenveldert tested the MUV app during a walk through the neighbourhood. Can it be further developed?

 

The third series of MakeHealth: Prototyping starts 9 March 2019 at Makerspace Contact in Amsterdam.

 

U-TOPIA sets the first step towards the empowerment of older Human Immunodeficiency Virus-patients.

 

Within the PACO project we will develop fundemental knowledge on the acceptance, working principles and persuasiveness of virtual agents.

 

The second series of MakeHealth: Prototyping starts 22 September 2018 at Makerspace Contact.

 

A workshop related to the GRAGE project will be held in Macerata (Italy) on July 19th: "Creative Industries and Design as a catalyst for entrepreneurship and innovation. A focus on: Healthy Ageing, Care, Urban inclusion and regeneration, Energy and the Environment".

 

In the Dutch project FIT we are aiming to support people who suffer from dementia and their carers in finding the right solutions in and around the home.

 

GRAGE intended to develop ideas to promote an active, harmonious, and inclusive citizenship for elderly people living in urban contexts.

 

On 6 April 2017, the City Health Monitor was presented during the event Jij Maakt de Stad! at The Student Hotel in Amsterdam. This monitor shows the current health state of our capital on five themes: food, green, energy, resources and clean air. The conclusion from this report is: Amsterdam is on the right track, but a lot remains to be done.

 

In 2016, Amsterdam won the iCapital Award for the most innovative city in Europe. Now, a public campaign titled 'Amsterdammers, Maak je Stad!' (Amsterdammers, make your city!) has been launched for all citizens of Amsterdam to participate in.

 

That plants and flowers have a positive effect on our health is since long a known fact. We experience tranquility in green surroundings, are less stressed and recover faster. So why have our health facilities not yet become a green oasis then? In the third edition of Blooming Cities at Pakhuis de Zwijger, this was the central question, and more than 80 people from both the green and health care worlds came together to discuss an action plan for a greener care environment.

 

Bringing innovators together, that is what Amsterdam Health is about: the online platform where you meet other health professionals. And of course, the Creative Care Lab initiatives of Waag are on board.

 

Paulien Melis (program developer at Waag) will speak on 7 November at 'Blooming Cities #3: Green and Care' at Pakhuis de Zwijger, where the project GRAGE (Grey and Green in Europe: elderly living in urban areas) is presented as a best practice.

 

How can products and services be better adjusted tot the needs and desires of the people that have to cope with dementia and there caretakers, to enable to live independently at their homes?

 

I went to 'Weekandoit' (that was held from 18 to 26 July 2016, at the Mole Vanvitelliana in Ancona, Italy), where Fablabs from Pesaro, Tolentino and Ancona exhanged views with other members of the creative maker movement. We went there to see if our Creative Care Lab can make a connection in the field of healthy ageing and we gave a workshop called 'Creative Industries and Design as a catalyst for entrepreneurship and innovation', together with Creative Cooperative France, at the CreaHub in Macerata.

 

Frail elderly often have to endure an arduous rehabilitation process after hipsurgery. To support this proces towards regaining functionality we have developed the game application ZELFIE. ZELFIE is specifically aimed at training functional activities, and at promoting self-reliance.

 

PhD student Mike van Diest (SPRINT/UMCG research centre) has developed a game to help seniors improve their balance at home. Improved balance can prevent falls. On 15 February 2016, he graduated on his research called 'Developing an exergaming for unsupervised home-based balance training in older adults'. In his research, Mike used the 'Users as designers' method, developed by Waag.

 

In context of the EU project GRAGE (short for ‘Green and Grey in Europe’), I visited Munich for two weeks. GRAGE focuses on the growing population of older adults (55+) in European cities. The programme aims to accumulate knowledge about environments that support green and healthy lifestyles for an aging population. We look at ‘aging’ as a creative challenge, instead of a burden, and investigate how elderly can (continue to) contribute in a so-called ‘silver economy’.

 

How can we age healthy and happily? Over the next four years, Waag will dive into these questions in the European GRAGE project (short for “Green and Grey in Europe”).

 

Explorative research about the needs and wishes of seniors living at home, their family carers and professional carers about the topic of communication technology.

 

We are currently busy with the development of 'Whiskers': objects that remotely connect people in a playful way. We think these means of communication can play a role in the future care of the elderly.

 

Sabine Wildevuur, head of Waag’s Creative Care Lab, talked to Elke van Riel (RIVM Magazine) about the role that creative technology can play in the wellbeing and social connectedness of elderly people.

 

How do we want to design our future? How to prepare our society? These questions play a central role in the program Careful Designs @ Waag Open Space. Presented by journalist and author Tracy Metz, with guests like Fleur Thomése, Dick van Dijk & Sabine Wildevuur (authors of the book Connect: Design for an Empathic Society), an the initiators of the Dutch city communities called Stadsdorpen.

 

Are robots becoming more and more human? Are we at the stage where bots are no longer toys to play with, but also tools that we can implement in our care system? During the workshop Living Labs for Healthy Ageing, organised by the Creative Care Lab of Waag, a group of 40 experts in this field explored how a living lab approach and service design can be used to develop product service systems (PSS) around caredroids.

 

Care robot Giraffe makes a special trip to the studios of the television show ZappLive, where Lukie Stalenhoef discovers together with the children in the audience what the robot can do and what the benefits of robotics for healthcare can be.

 

Sabine Wildevuur of Waag will speak on 25 November at a talkshow '65 shades of gray' by Tracy Metz on the role that caredroids could play in the needs of older citizens.

 

The book 'Connect - Design for an empathic society' is written by a group of authors with very different backgrounds, varying from business, ICT, marketing, anthropology, medicine, design and computer interaction. They all felt the urge to explore this field of connectedness and they discovered new opportunities for the emerging market of ‘aging-driven design’.

 

In the first nrc•next Saturday edition of the newspaper, the 'offline' addendum contained an article about technology for seniors.

 

In July 2013 the two-year project 'Health-Lab' in Amsterdam ended. Health-Lab was an open experiment environment in Amsterdam (a Living Lab for Care and ICT), where applications were developed and tested with users.

 

Each month, the Design Academy Eindhoven organizes a Design Debate in collaboration with Het Nieuwe Instituut and MU Gallerie Eindhoven. In the next edition, which takes place on 27 February 2013, the theme is Health & Gamificiation.

 

There are about 2,6 million elderly (over 65) living in The Netherlands. Many of them experience that there are less people around when they age to have a chat with. The increasing pressure on the spare time of their children, family and friends, or even people emigrating, make it difficult for elderly to keep in touch with their loved ones. A tablet can be an interesting gadget to enrich their daily life and the fill in the need for social contact. Waag asked two students of Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences to research what the possibilities and limitations are of the use of tablets in the life of elderly people.

 

To conclude the project Express to Connect, we will host an interactive afternoon on February 12th, 2013. At this event you will hear the latest about games for social connectedness and European collaboration in Healthcare.

 

During the NVTG conference 2013 Sabine Wildevuur, Head of the Creative Care Lab, will adress the question: Can creative technology diminish the existing pressure on healthcare?

 

Our experiences from several projects have resulted in a new Dutch publication on social connectedness: designing for healthy aging.

 

Waag has published a booklet containing the stories of nine inhabitants and a member of the care staff of the rest homes run by AMSTA. The stories are based on interviews, researchers accompanying care staff for several days and short tests that were carried out within the Health-Lab project.

 

Selemca is a project within the framework of Crisp, short for Creative Industry Scientific Programme. For Selemca we are concerned with the development of a Care droid. The aim of this droid is to support both those in need of care as well as care providers.

 

The idea behind Scottie is that with affective communication, the social connectedness between elderly in the early stages of dementia and their next of kin could be enhanced.

 

“Think big, start small and move fast.” With this credo Nicholas LaRusso, head of the innovation center of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, opened his keynote during the 19th International Student Congress of (bio)Medical Sciences at the Universitair Medisch Centrum Groningen.

 

How do you involve older people in the design of a Smart House? This is one of the questions Phillemonne Jaasma tried to answer during her internship at Waag.

 

Waag's Creative Care Lab participated in the Health-Lab project, that aimed at stimulating and accelerating innovation in health care, with a strong focus at the (end) users.

 

The Express to Connect project addressed the European-wide challenge of ageing.

 

Scottie is GATE's Innovative Pilot Healthcare by Waag.

 

The Geheugenhuis was a one-day festival about the influence of modern technology on our memory.

 

The Storytable was a piece of furniture specifically designed for one to six elderly persons. With only two buttons, users can activate historical features and view them on integrated screens.

 

How can elderly people stay independent in their own house? To answer this question Waag recentely created a model for the HealthLab project in Amsterdam.

 

After more than five years since the original Storytable was developed, it was time to move ahead with a new innovative version.