You may reasonably expect to live to a higher age than your parents, whose generation in turn grew older than their parents’. Developments in medical science and high standards of life bestow these blessings on us, and many challenges along with them. Greying hair might be our cultural marker for supposed wisdom, but increasingly, ‘vergrijzing’ of populations and the ageing individual pose great societal questions and challenges. Tonight, researchers from varied disciplines take us along into old age and attempt to address a few.
Some answers to the challenges of ageing populations may well be found in technological developments. Ben Kröse heads several research projects on healthy lifestyles and public spaces, developing, among other things, smart camera technology. In care facilities, for instance, a camera system that monitors elderly residents’ walking patterns can accurately predict their risk of stumbling in the near future, saving them and hospitals many treatments.
Elena Bendien was part of a team of scholars that set out into the province Zeeland to find out how the voluntary organization Festival of Recognition run by the older volunteers support inhabitants of the nursing homes and community-dwelling older vulnerable people. Her research is characterised by the participatory action philosophy – involving the elderly inhabitants of Zeeland in designing and conducting research as a part of the project team.
Somaya Ben Allouch is the head of the research group Digital Life at Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. In her talk she will zoom in on the role of technologies and elderly care with a specific focus on assistive living technologies, virtual reality and social robotics.
Join us in discussing the needs and questions of ageing in the twenty-first century, as we take note of new technologies – as well as their ethical and practical implications.
About the speakers
The main research interests of Somaya Ben Allouch involve design, acceptance, use, implementation and evaluation of technologies, specifically social robotics, ubiquitous technologies, assistive technologies and wearables. She has been working at the University of Twente where she obtained her PhD in 2008. She is now leading the Digital Life group at AUAS. The research focus of the Digital Life group is on innovative technology in everyday life with a special interest in the health and wellbeing domain.
Elena Bendien is a researcher in the field of medical humanities at the AUMC. With a background in social and cultural gerontology, she has made contributions to the Age Friendly City project in Amsterdam, Advanced Care project in Amstelveen and to the Old for Old (O4O) project in Zeeland. Her research focuses on the participatory action philosophy, involving the elderly inhabitants of Zeeland in designing and conducting research as a part of the project team.
For more information, see website ARIAS