Tag Archives: technology

Harvard study of almost 800k lives shows technology reduces medication error

Posted on by under Health, Research

Researchers at Harvard Medical School have demonstrated a new technology can help reduce a widespread problem that harms some 1.5 million people every year – medication error.

Of the valid alerts, 75 percent of them were for potentially life-threatening prescription errors, giving researchers a validation of of MedAware’s probabilistic, machine-learning approach (provided it is based on high-quality, complete underlying data).

Source: Harvard study of almost 800k lives shows MedAware technology reduces medication error

Six truths for successful startups addressing adult care opportunities

Posted on by under Care, Inspiration

Six truths for successful startups tackling the older adult care opportunity

Here are six top things for an entrepreneur to consider to create a successful business when building an older adult care product, service or experience.

Read the full article here:  Six truths for successful startups tackling the older adult care opportunity

Independent living in an ageing society through innovative ICT solutions

Posted on by under Gerontechnology, Health, Inspiration, Research

Independent living in an ageing society through innovative ICT solutions

Europe is facing a major societal challenge in the fact of a rapidly increasing ageing population. A key challenge is to find real solutions to ensure that our older citizens are able to live healthy, fulfilling and independent lives whilst keeping health and care systems sustainable. Exciting and groundbreaking EU research and innovation efforts look set to deliver these solutions.
Independent living in an ageing society through innovative ICT solutions

© European Union, 2016

With each passing year, Europeans are living longer. Although this is to be applauded, there will be increasing demands for health, social and informal care services over the coming decades. This will have real effects on how we live, work and shape our external and domestic environments – home, communities, cities and towns. Questions over who is (or who should be) responsible for health and social care will be at the top of political agendas and concrete answers must be provided. At the same time, the changing age structure of our society can also open up new opportunities for innovation in the digital economy and society.
Read more at:  http://cordis.europa.eu/article/id/400060-independent-living-in-an-ageing-society-through-ict_en.html

Economics of ageing: Coursework for Re-thinking aging

Posted on by under Education

Currently, I am participating in an massive online open course (MOOC) from the University of Melbourne on the topic of Re-thinking aging:  are we prepared to live longer?

The free course is offered through Coursera; it started the last week in April and runs for 5 weeks. You can read more about the course and sign up for future offerings at: https://www.coursera.org/learn/ageing/home/welcome

We were encouraged to keep a journal or blog about our journey through the course, particularly to note where our opinions and ideas have changed from the beginning of the course to the end. I thought this would be a great opportunity to share the course information and my opinions with you – a little something different than my usual posts 🙂 As such, this will be a work in progress over the next 5 weeks. Continue reading →

Forgetfulness is different than dementia

Posted on by under Education

Information overload is triggering Alzheimer’s fears among the ‘worried well’ say doctors

By IAN WALKER at THE DAILY TELEGRAPH on MAY 11, 2015

INFORMATION overload is convincing people they have Alzheimer’s disease when their brains are simply reaching their processing limits.

The ‘‘worried well’’ are turning up to doctors believing they have degenerative brain conditions after a bout of forgetfulness leaves them not able to find their keys.

Austin Health’s neuropsychology department in Victoria is studying this phenomenon and believe memory problems are the result of our brains not keeping up with technology.

“This expansion of information in our age has happened so fast, so expediently that it’s bringing us face to face with our own brains’ limitations,” Professor Michael Saling said. “Because the devices we use have perfect memories there is almost an expectation building that we too should have perfect memories.”

Brains instead were like computers and had a limit to their memory and how many things they could process at once, which for humans was about seven.

Professor Michael Martin Saling says we’ve lost sight of the fact that forgetfulness is normal. “We’ve lost sight of the fact that forgetfulness is a normal and necessary phenomenon,” Professor Saling said. “We must keep pushing information out so it can deal with information coming in and if it gets overloaded people become forgetful.”

Legal secretary and primary school teaching student Helen Fitzgerald, 26, from Randwick, found her brain at its limit recently when she forgot what time she finished work.

“I finish at 4.30pm but one day last week I just decided I finished at 4pm and nobody noticed and I kept doing it,” Ms Fitzgerald said. “I thought the days were going so quick and the bus is different and then it clicked and I called my boss and said ‘sorry’. My brain just switched one day.’’

Receptionist Joleyne Mathai, 21, from Penrith, has also suffered forgetfulness in the office. “If you do things throughout the day and people ask me to do something I forget a few things and will come back to them later,” Ms Mathai said.

Professor Michael Saling said people should see a doctor if they think they have serious memory problems or if their family members have noticed their cognitive struggles.