Positive Technology Journal

The fifth international conference on Gerontechnology took place in Nagoya May 24-27 2005. The slogan of the conference was "Technology for smart aging - For a long and happy life with health and self-esteem". The conference program included sessions like Universal Design, Mobility, Home care and Living, Health care and Robotics for Human Support. Topics like Work and Leisure were also treated.

Use of new information technology (IT) solutions was taken up in most of the presentations. The goal could be to provide elderly people with information about preventive care, help them get useful information when moving around outdoors or handling activities of daily living. It was shown that IT and Assistive Technology (AT) could be used to counteract the triggering factors that normally result in hospitalisation and long time care.

The Design for All and Inclusive design approaches were constantly referred to because it was shown that the elderly people had to be able to use new technology and services themselves. Use of Design for All or Inclusive design strategies and methods ensure that mainstream products, services and environments are accessible to the largest number of people.

Organiser of the conference was the International Society for Gerontechnology ISG.

More to explore: 

Links to the conference abstracts:sts.bwk.tue.nl/gerontech/Full_text/Volume_3/nr_4/Contents...

Via Medgadget

The Food and Drug Administration has recently approved a new treatment for severe depression based on a nerve stimulation system that delivers tiny electric shocks through vagus nerve and into a region of the brain thought to play a role in mood.

Cyberonics Inc.'s stimulation system is an adjunctive long-term treatment of chronic or recurrent depression for adults who are experiencing a major depressive episode that has not had an adequate response to two or more adequate antidepressant treatments.

Despite controversy over whether it's really been proven to work, the potential treatment targets an estimated 4 million Americans with hard-to-treat depression.

A Finnish IST International Security Technology has developed a well-being wristband called Vivago™, which analyses and transmits information on the user's level of activity and notifies if any deviations from normal occur. The wristband is intended to allow elderly or chronically ill person to continue independent living securely at home.

When using the wristband for the first time, it measures the user's normal level of activity. Later on, if the wristband observes anything that deviates from the normal level of activity, it automatically sends a notification to the recipient of alarms, which may be a community nursing centre.