Planning Grant: Engineering Research Center for Connected Eldercare

Over 80% of COVID deaths in the United States were people aged 65 and older, and over 40% of these deaths took place in nursing homes and long-term care facilities. Current in-person eldercare practices caused numerous cluster infection cases in nursing facilities. The pandemic has also severely impacted home care, day care, visiting nurses, and all in-person care services in the US and worldwide, showing current nursing practices and systems are vulnerable. Those tragic cases could be better handled if in-person care could be supplemented by other means. This planning project will explore a new remote care system for supplementing all in-person services by exploiting telemedicine technology. During the pandemic, we have observed a rapid growth of telemedicine services; people can easily and safely get access to medical professionals from a distance. Once people use telemedicine and realize its usefulness, they will continue to use it even after the pandemic winds down. In this planning project, the feasibility and potential impact of if elderly people can be supported physically from a remote site, so that they can live safely and independently, will be investigated.

The goal is to provide elderly people with both informational and physical supports without on-site in-person care. Remotely-operated robots will assist elderly people in moving around and performing daily chores. Three major challenges will be investigated. First, the technology must be established for designing a walker-type, mobility-aid robot that can prevent the elderly from falling, assist the elderly in transitioning between sitting and standing, and provide a seamless support throughout daily activities. Second, under the supervision of a remote caregiver, the robot must communicate with the elderly user and gain a cooperative attitude from him/her in providing physical supports. Third and key to successful deployment of the technology, a workforce development curriculum must be created. While the technology must fit the environment of eldercare, effective and engaging curricula must be developed for training care providers. To this end, broad expertise, ranging from robotics, biomedical and rehabilitation engineering, human-machine systems, networking and AI to geriatrics, nursing, psychology, business administration, and policy, will be brought together. In this planning project, a converging research team will be formed through expert interviews, site visits, online and in-person workshops, and webinars. A broad spectrum of input will be sought from technical, social, and economics experts and stakeholders for better planning for the establishment of a new NSF engineering research center for connected eldercare.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.