Using Technology to Keep Seniors Safe

Ypsilanti, Michigan, USA

As the U.S. elderly population continues to rapidly grow, their mobility and ultimately their health and safety can be challenged by the environment around them. That’s why Professor SangHyun Lee is using wearable-based technology to help seniors stay mobile and age in place—while avoiding falls and exposure to environmental risks or hazards.

Health Theme Infrastructure Theme Social Theme

Funding Sources

  • Urban Collaboratory

  • UM Exercise and Sports Science Initiative

About the Project

As the U.S. elderly population continues to rapidly grow, their active aging including mobility becomes very important.

However, the way we design, construct, and maintain our built environment hasn’t been recalibrated to accommodate such demographic changes, and various environmental barriers that significantly hinder the elderly’s mobility have evaded serious consideration. To address these issues, this research aims to develop and test a wearable-based crowd-physiological sensing framework that detects the elderly’s distress in the built environment without substantially interfering with their daily life.

Project goals and metrics:

  •  The elderly’s distress applying wearables (e.g., wristband) without interfering with their daily life
  •  Synthesis of temporal and spatial distress in infrastructure
  •  The best use of distress in infrastructure for mobility, community campaign and education, and policy making and urban planning
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