Quests.

OK.

It was should start with questions and
then we'll see if we have time for

my presentation.

Well we can always change it's the last
one right you can change up so

so let me start.

By sort of just telling you a little
bit about what the rehabilitation

Engineering Research Center.

Program is about.

And where we fit into that So
this is a five year grant and

there are eighteen centers similar centers
on different topics around the country

they're funded for five years four and
a half million dollars give or

take they go up and down a little
each year in terms of the awards but

somewhere around four and
a half million dollars for the five years.

They are used to be funded by
the National Institute on Disability and

rehabilitation research as
Dr Greenlee said however

in the in the fall they were actually
moved they used to be in the Department

of Education and they were moved into the
Department of Health and Human Services.

Into the administration for
community living so actually for

lo these many years that I've been
doing work for for the agent for

this particular agency they were in
the Department of Education in everybody

go well you know it's a national institute
aren't they in the National Institutes of

Health what's going on and so they finally
although not in the National Institutes of

Health or at least in Department of Health
and Human Services which is the kind

of research that they actually fund and
I think a much better place for them now.

Ever in doing this they actually added
independent living to their name so

now their acronym used to which used
to be nighter is now a Needler.

Which is kind of strange.

The mission of our center as opposed
to the other seventeen centers and

I also would should tell you
that of those eighteen centers

three of them were are currently
a Georgia Tech one of them is ending up

Stephens Froogle has a center and
Tia that's just finishing up there's

also an on his on will
mobility there is one

that's run out of the Center for
Advanced Communication policy which is

on wireless technologies and Previously
we had one on workplace accommodations so

of the limited number of centers
Georgia Tech has had four which is

pretty amazing considering that we
don't have a clinical program and

I believe we're the only school that has
any of these centers without a clinical

program so the mission of this interest to
conduct interdisciplinary rehabilitation

engineering research and development and
we have built Taishan engineering in and

of itself is pretty broad it
encompasses not just engineering but

design and technology.

Interdisciplinary is important and

I'll talk a little bit more
about that on the next slide and

the goal is to increase knowledge
about availability of an access

to affective universally
design technologies.

Universal Design is an important component
of what we do it's been a component

in all the work that I do and
it's gradually finding its way

into into the other already or
sees as well and it's to

enable people to sustain independence
maintain health safely engage in basic AG.

It is of daily living at home in the
community and participate in society so

it's not just doing stuff it's also
being able to engage in social roles but

the important thing for
us is as people age with disability and

I'll also give talk a little
bit more about our space and

how we differ from other ageing grants and
disability grounds.

So interdisciplinary interdisciplinary is
important because it solves problems you

can solve diverse problems
that people have in the in

using the environment as they get older
and with disability if you don't have

an interdisciplinary approach and what
we've done is we've sort of spread this

out around campus certainly
the College of Architecture and.

In the School of Design the Center for

graphic information systems sucrose
here in the alternative media

accessibility Center which is also
part of the College of Architecture.

Those are the four components in the
college that are part of this but we also.

Have researchers involved from the College
of sciences particularly psychology and

in fact my two kopi eyes on the grant.

When you Rogers and Tracy Mitzna are both
in psychology so the three of us.

Are part sort of overseas or Graham.

The college of engineering we
have biomedical engineering and

mechanical College of computing the.

H.C.I. program i Pad at the Institute for
people in technologies and

within i Pad There's the Interactive
Media Technology Center and

there where home are part
of this grant Georgia Tech.

Human Research Institute human factors
like the Emory Center for Health and

Ageing in the College of Sciences and
Engineering University.

South Carolina and
there are some other players that have.

Also have some other consultant roles but
by and

large you can see that both across
Georgia Tech and Emory Medical School

we have a pretty diverse group
of individuals working on.

This center.

And the center is basically
a house to house for

different projects to to occur and so
there are three research projects and

in those three research projects there
are actually a couple of sub projects so

all told there's really five different
projects but when you submit something

to the review panel only look at the scope
of work that says you've got to you know

all these five projects and you've got
all this other stuff it's too much so

you try and you know make it look like
it's a smaller scope of work by saying

we only have three research projects and
I'll show you how they all nest.

To do that and

then similarly in development we have
three development projects which also have

a couple of sub projects and three
training projects so that three three and

three looks really good when you're
writing it it's symmetrical.

Let me talk a little bit of al before I
tell you about the projects that we're

doing let me tell you about
sort of where we see our

space what why we're different and
then other projects and why

we're doing different research than other
people are doing either in disability and

aging This is a graphic that
that sort of in development

this is the first iteration of
it we've been tweaking it so

we're trying to fit a lot of stuff in
here but let me run through it and

show you what I'm talking about so
on the top person context and

fit is really a German to logical
approach to to environment and

aging it comes out of
psychology in general.

And basically low.

The interaction between the person
the environment and the context and

the performance that is the fit between
the two that allows you to engage

in activity and participate in
society that goes back into the one

nine hundred seventy S. But more recently
the World Health Organization developed

a back in about twelve years ago
thirteen years ago developed a model

called the International classification of
functioning disability and health which

looks at the interaction of body structure
that is your physical body the function

that is what you can do to your
abilities based on your physical body.

The interaction of that and the
environment in terms of either barriers or

facilitators to your to your
performance of activities and

your participation in society so
in traditional research we're looking

at impairment that is a limit that is
something that goes wrong with the body or

in body function or structure or
body structure rather or

we look at age related changes that is
this ability research at the top and

Aging Research at the bottom this ability
research would be sort of the night or

an aging research would be in the National
Institute on Aging because one's looking

at disability one's looking at aging So
what happens is that you

have a person that has
some some impairment or

limitation in body structure which.

When that person tries to interact with
the environment may encounter a barrier if

they encounter a barrier that they can't
that they can't get through it ends up

in disability so people with impairments
don't don't necessarily have a disability

they only have a disability when
there's a barrier in the environments.

Disability is this interaction

in the of itself impairment doesn't
mean that you are disabled or

in and of itself an age related change
such as a limitation in vision or

hearing or
mobility doesn't necessarily mean you

have a disability only if you can't
interact successfully with the environment

if you can't find a facilitator.

So similarly if you can
match up with a facilitator.

Regardless of your impairment or
your age related change you might have

successful performance the difference
between successful performance within

the same body function and structure and
limitation is your environment.

Alternatively what we're really looking
at is what happens when you have

an impairment and you have an age related
change so it's not just about I'm getting

older and
I have I have lower body impairment or

I have a vision impairment it's what
happens if I have a vision impairment or

or a motor impairment and I have age
related changes on top of that so

that my vision impairment I now
have a mobility limitation.

So as we get older we lose function.

Beyond the the where our impairment is and
now we're looking

at the additive affects of things it's
no longer this sort of singular and

pure homogeneous kind of functioning but
it's this interaction between.

An additive affects of age
on top of an impairment so

similarly you now have
multiple limitations

not just a singular him limitation and
again when you meet up with a barrier.

You that you can't get.

Through or can interact with you
end up with disability However

what also happens is things that used
to be facilitators now come barriers so

now it's harder to find a facilitator
because things that were facilitators

before are now barriers.

So in order to have successful
performance you need to find

a facilitator that a work so
the difference between

that's the difference between what
we're doing down here and the either or

of what's going on pretty much in
the rest of the disability research and

development world and the aging
research and development world so

all of the projects that we're engaged
in are looking at people who are aging

with some sort of impairment and
are overlaying the effects

of age related changes
that have caused them to.

Have a disability.

So in our research activities
we've got three research projects

identifying user needs the effects
of hearing loss on mobility and

participation of people aging
with vision disability or

vision impairment and
tell wellness technologies.

The first one actually is the one that has
three you know three cell projects in it

so they're all looking at identifying
user needs Wendy Rodgers in psychology is

the principal investigator over
the whole are one project.

And the purpose of the R one projects
are to provide a needs based scientific

foundation that is necessary for
effective technology integration into

the lives of older adults with
disabilities so because this

is a new space and there isn't a whole lot
of research with the these particular.

Populations that we're looking at of
people with impairments aging and having

age related changes we sort of in a lot
of ways have to go back to square one and

understand what's the difference
between our user population.

And the impairment or
disability or sorry or

age related changes populations.

So the first sub project is to.

Develop a taxonomy of everyday support
needs that is providing an evidence base

for attacks on a me of needs in
the performance of everyday activities

among people with hearing vision or
mobility disability and

stratified by functional loss so really
trying to understand what's going on with

these individuals in their daily lives as
they gauge in activities in their own.

This is.

They've been developing a registry of

individuals that within this project.

Too that will feed forward
into some other projects but

basically collecting a lot of functional
data on a lot of people to try and

understand sort of what
their needs are and

in order to target our
future research projects.

The second so
projects aging with mobility impairment.

Understanding the challenges in
the home is identifying home based user

needs of older adults with long
term mobility impairment so

here we're focusing on just
mobility impairment and

looking at the environmental
challenges that people have and

exploring the impact of age related
changes on on these individuals on bed

transfer bathing showering toileting
food preparation and home mobility and

they're using they so if a multi method
approach by doing questionnaires.

People with with who are using different

technologies and and
then doing a observations

based approach to understand
the day in the life experience so

asking them to go through asking people to
go through a protocol of doing things and

then observing them and
trying to pack the.

Person environment fit problems
that are out there having.

The third project under.

Under user needs is an integrated we
have engineering research data set

to predict task performance and technology
needs and simply what this is is trying

to pull together all of
the research data coming out of.

Out of this user needs project from the
other sub projects as well as our other

projects that we're developing or
that we're working on and collecting

the same functional performance data for
individuals in the same biomechanical and

from metric data and
demographic data shoving it all and

matching it up into one big database and
trying to look for correlations between.

Between all of these different factors and
techno and

task performance so that we can be able to
look at what predicts task performance and

task for Mr Klein so
that we can intervene before

proactively rather than retroactively
because when it's retroactive

then people go through this period of
well I can't do what I used to do and

they can't do it so they don't
question is if we can in a intervene

proactively then people can transition
through their functional declines but

still be able to engage in activities.

And I think there
are actually a couple of A.

Other projects you'll hear the same thing
about being able to predict performance

in order to modify the environment
the second research project

is affects of hearing loss on mobility of
people aging with vision disabilities so

here we're looking at people
who have been who have a vision

loss vision disability or
vision impairment long term and

they people who use sound based
systems technology devices for

sonic example sonic canes or
sound based G.P.S.

who have maybe function perfectly well.

In the environment in getting around
now or losing their hearing and

they can't use the same technologies that
they've been using similarly they've

developed compensatory strategies
using auditory spatial cues

sound from cars even asking for
directions and

if you can no longer interact that way how
do you get around in the environment so

the idea here is to observe people.

In the community have them go through.

Three routes to find the following
directions and understanding the problems

that they're having using the sound
based technologies that they're in and

strategies that they have current that
they've been using in order to understand

and identify new ways of providing

information to these individuals.

So it's basically describing the impacts
of hearing loss on mobility and

the usability of their of their
strategies in assistive technology.

Identifying the auditory characteristics
and strategies that predict mobility

performance and developing
invalidating guidelines for the.

For the integration of new
cell based technologies or

sound based cues into both training
of individuals with vision loss

as they age as well as increasing the
effectiveness of assisted technologies.

The last research project.

Which is tele wellness technologies
is actually sort of this

multifaceted project to understand
barriers and facilitators to

the acceptance of tell of
technologies by older adults for.

For use in Intel or wellness that is in
this particular case it's using it for

exercise interventions but looking
at different technologies that could

be used to have a group exercise
intervention remotely for

example on the next slide.

Actually you can't really see it because
it's way over there there's a little it's

a picture of.

A veto robot correct although we don't
have a vehicle robot anymore we now have

double robots basically it's
a it's a remote controlled i Pad

that you can move around on wheels
the idea here is to basically

look at the barriers of facilitators to
the acceptance of these technologies find

the one that's that we think
is going to work best.

Develop an exercise
intervention implement it and

look at the use of the of the robot and
how easy it is to use and

how well older adults
can can use this kind

of technology in a remote
social atmosphere so people.

Exercising in their own homes but
collaborating or doing it together.

Synchronously through the use
of this kind of technology.

It's just in there and go it's just.

What I need is a remote control for
my for my technology like a robot and

it could just move

around.

I'd rather watch.

So there are also three
development projects so

the difference between research in
the development is simply that the goal

of the research is information that could
be used in development in the future

the goal of development is something
tangible a product something literally you

can hold in your hand there is research
involved in the development there's

development involved in the research but
it's what's the what's the purpose

alternately what's the outcome what
are we going to get out of it.

So each of these projects we've got
something coming out the first one is

the ageing and disability innovation
garden which really is about app

development the second one is
smart bathroom technologies and

the third one is the mobile
manipulator robot and

I'll tell you a little bit more about
all of these so like our first research

project project our first
development project has

three sub projects really
what this is about is.

Is developing apps and
what we've done is we've seeded it

with three projects over
the first three years that.

We sort of knew there was a need for
based on prior research and

our expertise and
the idea is that over two and

a half years of the last two and a half
years of the grant we're going to try and

identify new apps that we
might be able to fund so.

We set aside some money out of
our budgets for the last two and

a half years of the grant to
be able to find new projects

that might be appropriate for
aging with disability and

be able to bring those to fruition and
through additional funding.

When you get to the last training project
that I talk about I'll talk about how

those two things can happen.

So the first project is inaccessible
cognitive training through

Universal Design and this is actually
very best in the Coleman who is

in a reactive Media Technology Center
actually had developed an application for

older adults a gaming out for
cognitive training

and what we're doing is taking this
to the next level and saying OK well

not just cognitive training how can we
make it universal How can we make sure

that all older adults with disabilities
can be able to use this out so

they're really really creating
interfaces in inputs and

outputs so that people can use the more

gaming app is more usability so trying to
take the worst case in order to start with

rather than older adults with disabilities
to undergrad college students and

to see how well the app worked after
they did some tweaking for to it and

basically found that pretty much they
did five undergrads in a quick and

dirty test and found them you know for
the most part other than.

And that they wanted more animated
figures it worked pretty well so

working pretty well for a user group
that you would expect it to work for.

At least gives us the first sort
of step towards taking your two.

To a to a user group that
might be more difficult

typically in research we do that uses.

If you start with the hardest case and

it doesn't work you're sort of dead in the
water because you have no clue how to make

it better so
if you start with the best case and

you know it can work with the best case
you can at least know it works for

somebody and you can work your
way up to the hardest case.

The second project which
I'm doing with super zero

in in the C.G.I.
center is to develop an app for

locational intelligence and
geospatial navigation which is a fancy

way of saying we want to develop
an application for route planning.

And for older adults who had been able
to get around even with a disability or

an impairment for a long time when
they start losing their ability

there are other abilities it may be
more difficult so for people with

ambulatory disabilities
who needed Kirk and.

And float and shallow slopes now may have

difficulty getting around because of their
vision loss because they can't see where

the barriers are and they can't see where
the facilitators are like an island or

refuge island in the middle of the road
and they stop going out and they stop.

Going out into the community and
they become more homebound So

the idea here is to develop an app that
will give them the information that they

need in order to get around
beyond the information.

They needed before.

And they probably already
know in terms of what was

facilitating their mobility limitation and
what we do is we came up with a list and

I can remember was like fifty some
odd parameters that might be relevant

to community mobility and
our goal here wasn't to say

this is what makes it accessible most of
the accessibility apps that are out there

determine for
the individuals what success of all so

there's no curb cut it's not accessible
Well if you have a vision loss and

you know you don't necessarily need a curb
cut so what successful for one person and

usable for one person is there for
and then another person so

what we did was we said OK let's take
all the stuff that might be relevant to

anybody put it into this app and
then find out what.

At least prioritize what people need or
want and

then you know we can lead them customize
the app for whatever they needed so

we did some preliminary testing and
found out what the key issues were for

for our population and that way we can
then sat at least the defaults but

they can go in and change them so

that the idea is that they can choose
their usability they can choose where

they get information by vibration
in audio in addition to text.

They can choose their essential parameters
and then they can choose a set of

secondary parameters so
that it's all based on what they want or

they need not just necessarily what or
not what somebody else determines for

you what you need and
then basically you set the parameters.

And you can.

Find a group and when the route
doesn't qualify all your parameters

the app will tell you what the problems
are and then you can choose that route.

An alternative route that may have.

Maybe more to your to your needs or
wants at a particular time.

The last step is mobility you
have to measure gauge speed

gauge speed has been shown to be.

An incredibly accurate predictor
of morbidity and mortality.

While we're our population
is not about morbidity and

mortality it is about
predicting activity decline so

what we want to be able to do is
to come up with a way of measuring

gait speed accurately not
just with a stopwatch.

And cost effective in order to be
able to do this both in the home and

clinical settings and this is our project
that Brian Jones who is the director of

Aware Home is doing with the Center for
Health and Ageing at Emory because they're

they're really interested in being able to
predict in a clinical setting function and

decline and we're really interested in
a home setting and how to do that so that

ultimately we can again identify or
develop a model that will.

A predictive model to identify
trajectories of decline so

we can intervene before people decline.

The smart bathroom project.

Is a project that we're actually
doing in Aware Home and

the idea here is to develop a bathroom
environment with embedded sensors that

are capable of assessing an individual's
abilities at any point in time and

automatically adjusting supportive
environmental features So imagine that

if we can understand
gait balance posture or.

High we can then be able to.

To develop computer algorithms that will.

Control the fixtures in the grab bars and
locate them in the right place so right

now they're actually there's fixtures on
the market in fact where we're purchasing

some for the development of the lab that
are that mechanically go up and down.

And back and forth or or
manually do that as well but.

They're intended for people to be
able to adjust them when they need to

well who's going to go into the bathroom
and having to go to the toilet and

adjust their grab bars in the first place
right on the spot first of all they

won't know where to put them and second of
all the time to do that and probably don't

have the strength of the ability to do
that so the idea here is that instead of.

Creating a fixed environment
which we typically do for

people who have variable abilities some
with arthritis or multiple sclerosis or

Parkinson's disease you know their
abilities change daily So if you fix

the environment and they do you know to
need on day one what happens on day two or

three or four so the idea here is to be
able to vary the environment as needed for

anybody who needs it so
we're outfitting the floor with

with load cells we have toilet
a toilet that goes back and

forth and up and down the tub goes up.

Not necessarily just because
the I'm sorry the third one is

the tub the tub goes up so that we
can get it out of the way and have.

A curb a shower that the tub
actually sits in but

it allows us to vary the type
of height if we needed to and

then we've got grab bars we've got a
perforated wall basically where grab bars

can be put it in any angle or any high or.

Anywhere basically So the idea is to test
a lot of people get a lot of data and

find out what the connections.

Are between between ability and
biomechanics and

metrics and transfer.

And the last project in development is

probably the coolest one
because it's a robot project.

Everybody loves a robot projects but
this one is really unique because this is

a case where the robot interacts with the
person physically and it's really I think

I'm pretty sure it's the only project
that's out there where as you can see.

On the screen the robots actually
saving Henry who is one of our

collaborators he has
he had a stroke in and

has no body function whatsoever he uses
eye gaze he can control the robot.

And when we had a site visit he did
a demonstration he's in California

controlled the robot in the in
the lab here at Georgia Tech and

was able to drive it around the lab
through eye gaze by the Internet so

using a Willow Garage P.R.
two robot which has a lot

of flexibility there not only
their programming it and

creating a system where the robot
can know where Henry is and

what the activities are that needs
to be done using tactile sensors.

And a remote assistance system but what's
really going to be unique about this

as they get through the technicality
of the interaction is

to put some smarts into the robot so
that the robot can anticipate needs so

that the robot will know what the robot
needs to do without Henry having to tell

it what to do and
developing their smartness is.

Sort of the next the next
level beyond this interaction.

And then finally the three
training projects.

Unlined education.

In post-secondary education in the you
do your ward here at the C.I. C.

competition so the online
education is really a series of.

Of webinars and web based training

to provide we have engineering
research skills to rehab engineers and

practitioners designers and
tech developers.

And this is really the goal of the of the.

Needler to be able to create the next
generation of rehab engineers

as well as to impart
research evidence base.

Practices within within the profession
itself so that it's not all see

the pants guessing or our expert opinion.

The post-secondary training is to
introduce the principles of universal

design we have engineering research and
aging with disability to Georgia Tech

students again interdisciplinary
really it's not necessarily

limited to ID mechanical
engineering H.C.I. and psychology.

But those are the primary targets.

And then finally there's the Universal
Design Award in the Georgia Tech

convergence innovation
competition which is tonight.

We have a judge here Clara rebel or has
come back to to be a judge in the two and

this is an award that is going to
cut across all the categories and

I think we also have some entrance
here into the competition so

we're hoping that you know we
do pretty well in the US but

basically it's again to get
the idea of universal design and

ageing with disability
as a mainstream focus

rather than sort of a specialty focus.

And we have thirteen minutes left.

For us questions.

Well this is it's actually
Charlie chems projects so

I have the the whole team has
him put into what they do.

The ideas for
them to develop the algorithms for

machine learning.

That's beyond that's
beyond my my expertise

it's technically for all to Miller for
everybody but it's for people who have.

Vision loss ness is the be.

The rationale is based on people
who were mobility impaired that is

lation issues might have used a wheelchair
or a walker just had difficulty getting

disability and community mobility.

But were probably
successful at doing it and

now have vision loss so
it doesn't mean that their.

Vision loss of vision function
doesn't mean that they're blind and

doesn't mean that they can't see
anything but the will be designed for

people who can't see and
because it has to be universal.

That's what it'll be auditory they'll
be they'll be auditory inputs and

well at this point they're there they're
working on the auditory output and

they're you pretty much done all
timidly and I've not had this at this.

At this prototype but
it should have voice input as well.

I send all my research
assistants out to midtown and

they just grab people.

It is the thing it's a really good
question because getting participants is

always the hardest thing and
even after you get them.

Sometimes you know if you're doing
research not in their homes it's hard to

get them there so the initial.

The initial thrust and actually only

answer some of this better than
me because she did some of this.

Initial thrust was to look
at the there are three

basic registries that are that we
started with so has a registry.

Is mostly people with disabilities there's
a registry in the human factors and

aging lab in psychology when you Rogers
which is mostly just older adults and

then there's the home lab project
where they've got five hundred and

fifty give or take people who have
agreed to be in projects but not just

in the research as research subjects but
in their homes so

we started with those three but we're
continually trying to build on them and

actually as we do this integrating
the people who are who are from

the three registries who participate
integrating them into one registry.

So there is a standard set of

data that we're collecting for
people in just in the registry and

then they'll be additional data that's
collected on a project by project basis

although we're trying to have an overlap
in a lot of the data that we collect so

that when we do the R three project
which is a big database project we have

you know the same fields but we.

I don't want to collect more data for
a project than a project needs so

if we need you know age for our one and
we don't need it for two we might not

you know collect their data so
there might not be a complete data set for

everyone within within
the your three project but

it'll be at least the same you know
the data is of the same type collected

in the same way but it's a good question
because it always seems easy and

it's the most time
consuming difficult part.

If you want to.

Yes.

Well so that's a really good question
because I went the other way I spent

thirty years doing that and
now to overcome the limitations of policy.

And of.

Of A.T.A.I. which is policy or
is designed overlaid on policy or

vice versa overcoming the limitations
to give people something that

they can hand in hand rather simply and
easily and

not wait around for the environment
to change to meet their needs.

And that was the argument
that I made is that.

You know regardless of of of what we
know about changing the environment.

It takes a long time for that to happen
if it happens at all good example is

Georgia Tech is doing an eighty
a audit they should have had done

in one thousand nine hundred ninety nine
hundred ninety six All right we are twenty

years we are twenty years that this
institution could have been sued because

we didn't have a viable eighty
eight transition plan right so

the plan just means now we
know what we have to do and

all we have to do is probably
find you know the twenty or

thirty million dollars to do it now so
you know how

how long would it take to do an amp that
we could give everybody on campus so

that at least they could get around
whereas they couldn't do that before so.

You.

Know.

Her and in the end I think one of the.

The difficulties has been attracting
undergrads to to research in general

I do have a fair number of probably half
of my my fall classes undergrads but

that's which is just on
universal design in general.

But the undergrads don't typically
you know sort of gravitate to

research.

You go.

In.

And be happy that.

They were.

OK There you go instead
of are instead of or are

Turks.

I mean I I mean I do I can
answer that question for

I can't answer that question for the other
projects I can only answer them for for

the two projects on the P.R.I.
on for one of the P.R. is on so

this more about them in the house project
but I don't have undergrads working on my

other projects either so out of this
is one of you know one of four or

five projects that I have.

But you are asking specifically
about you know for for the college.

This is just a.

Two minute.

Well thank you.