ICF: Socially Assistive Walker To Promote The Health And Well-being In Older Adults

这一建议是基于有关老年人需要身体和社会护理的有力证据。需要提供援助和监测，以确保个人随着年龄的增长获得更好的健康和福祉。由于孤立和获得医疗服务的机会减少是老年人的关键问题，我们需要开发一种机器人辅助工具，通过整合社会代理的功能来突破现有物理辅助设备的界限，以解决孤立、孤独和独立性减弱的问题。该项目将开发一个多模式机器人平台，以协助和监测患有与典型和非典型衰老相关的神经退行性疾病的人，以及潜在的精神健康状况的发展。老年人的行动能力和平衡能力通常会受到影响，与跌倒相关的成本估计为每年23亿英镑。尽管在过去的20年里，人们努力开发辅助机器人来支持老年人，比如外骨骼、智能步行者和社交机器人，但由于缺乏可穿戴性、稳健性和成本问题，它们距离实际用户的采用还很远。该项目将在中等身体脆弱的老年人已经采用的助行器框架上嵌入价格合理且切实可行的机器人技术，以产生一种新型的共同设计的机器人，具有与护理人员和家庭相互联系的物理和社会互动能力，为我们的医疗保健系统提供一个有前途的解决方案。在步态辅助和康复以及人机交互方面进行了十年的研究，PI和他的多学科团队非常适合探索这一研究机会。该小组由生物机器人专家、医疗保健专家以及英国国家医疗服务体系（NHS）和老龄化私人组织组成，他们将在24个月的时间里，利用医疗保健技术解决老年人的需求。SAW-Health包括(1)日常生活活动（ADL）辅助和自主性：机器人在多种情况下提供路径规划、导航、定位和指导，以实现自主性和独立性。(2)步态辅助和身体活动监测：辅助运动障碍患者，诱导身体活动。可穿戴传感器架构将收集用户的生物力学和生理信息，以估计步态质量和用户的整体健康状态。(3)社交互动：机器人将整合社交代理的功能，以尖端技术为用户提供陪伴。最终的目标是比较实现的机器人系统的可用性与传统的步行器在养老院和独立住宅的健康老年人。

This proposal is based on robust evidence around the need for physical and social care during ageing. Assistance and monitoring are required to secure better health and wellbeing for individuals as they age. As isolation and reduced access to health services are critical issues for older adults, we need to develop a robotic assistive tool that will push the boundaries of existing physical assistive devices by integrating the functionalities of a social agent to address isolation, loneliness, and diminished independence. This project will develop a multimodal robotic platform to assist and monitor people with neurodegenerative conditions associated with typical and atypical ageing and the potential development of mental health conditions. Mobility and balance are commonly compromised in older adults, with the costs associated with falls estimated at £2.3 billion/year. Despite efforts to develop assistive robots to support older adults during the last 20 years, such as exoskeletons, smart walkers, and social robots, they are far from actual user adoption due to lack of wearability, robustness, and cost issues. This project will embed affordable and tangible robotic technology on the walker frames already adopted by mid-fragile older adults to generate a novel co-designed robot with physical and social interaction capabilities interconnected with carers and families to present a promising solution to empower our healthcare system. With ten years of research in gait assistance and rehabilitation and human-robot interaction, the PI and his multidisciplinary team are ideally placed to explore this research opportunity. The group, composed of biorobotics and healthcare experts along with the NHS and ageing private organisations, will work for 24 months to address the needs of older adults with the help of healthcare technology.SAW-Health includes (1) Activities of Daily Living (ADL) assistance and autonomy: The robot provides path planning, navigation, localisation, and guidance in multiple scenarios to enable autonomy and independence. (2) Gait assistance and physical activity monitoring: To assist patients with motor disabilities and induce physical activity. A wearable sensor architecture will gather biomechanical and physiological information from the user to estimate gait quality and the overall user's health state. (3) Social interaction: The robot will integrate the functionalities of a social agent to provide companionship to the users with cutting-edge technology. The final goal is to compare the usability of the implemented robotic system with a traditional walker in healthy older adults in care homes and independent houses.