If
you fell and couldn't get up, your doctor would know about
it.
That's the goal of a small group of U.Va. researchers who
last year launched an interdisciplinary effort to develop
new medical devices to monitor aging patients and help them
stay independent as long as possible.
"Everyone is affected by the diseases of the aging
process," said John Lach, assistant professor of electrical
and computer engineering. "The more we can do to help
older people cope, the better off we'll all be."
Diseases of the elderly range from debilitating physical
ailments, such as Parkinson's disease, to conditions affecting
memory and mental acuity, such as Alzheimer's. Dr. Mark
E. Williams, professor and chief of the Division of General
Medicine and Geriatric Medicine, is spearheading the development
of an Institute on Aging at U.Va. to strengthen efforts
around the University to tackle various aspects of the aging
process.
The Virginia Embedded Systems Laboratory (VESL) at U.Va.'s
School of Engineering and Applied Science is a major part
of this interdisciplinary approach. Medical researchers
associated with the lab are working to gain a better understanding
of the aging process-what happens to people as they age
and why their ability to function declines-while engineers
are creating new technologies to enable physicians to better
understand, diagnose and treat the mental and physical disorders
associated with aging.
Members of the VESL team include Dr. Williams, who is an
expert on the body's functional degradation associated with
aging; Timothy Salthouse, professor of psychology, who is
exploring changes in cognitive ability as people age; and
Dr. G. Frederick Wooten, professor and chair of the Department
of Neurology, whose research focuses on neurological disorders
related to aging, such as Parkinson's disease.
One of the lab's main projects is to develop non-invasive,
wearable technologies that will monitor a wearer's motion-such
as a Parkinson's patient's tremors-and signal changes that
suggest a patient is in trouble. This summer, undergraduate
students in electrical and computer engineering are building
a prototype-a radio transmitter that patients will strap
on at home. The wireless device will send signals to receivers
installed throughout a patient's house. The receivers will,
in turn, transmit data to an in-home computer connected
to the Internet so the patients' physicians can log into
a data collection center and monitor their patients' vital
signs from a distance.
The researchers are also interested in collecting patients'
biological data, such as heart rate, blood pressure and
body temperature, and environmental data, such as room temperature,
noise and light, for use by physicians.
The project promises to make health care for the elderly
more efficient, providing help only when needed and only
as much as needed by calibrating the treatment to fit an
individual patient's needs, said James Aylor, professor
and chair of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department.
"We often care for the elderly in a one-size-fits-all
way," Aylor said. "But one size doesn't fit all.
And there is danger both in providing too much help and
in not providing enough help. Inadequate care clearly falls
short of our mission. And too much help can create dependence
where it didn't exist before."
The goal is to make the technologies as passive and non-invasive
as possible, Lach added. "Eventually, we'd like them
to be as small as a quarter-sized Band-Aid or something
that would fit on a watchband or a belt," he said.
Lach believes they will have small, wireless, working prototypes
within two years.
Aylor said the researchers haven't ruled out a fashionable
approach to the problem, as they consider embedding technology
in jewelry, such as earrings with transmitters or finger
rings that monitor a pulse. "Who says technology has
to be ugly?"
