Limerick-based researchers aim to advance home care support for elderly people

ADVANCING home care for elderly people is what Limerick-based researchers are setting their sights on, having been awarded €140k for a two-year project.

Improving home care technology for those mainly over the age of 65 is one of the goals of a new interdisciplinary research programme at Lero, who are based in the University of Limerick (UL).

While technology-enabled care (TEC) in homes currently has support items for people such as motion sensors and panic buttons, the Lero team hope to advance it further with monitoring technology, which will reduce falls, for example.

In Ireland, the economic impact of falls is reportedly €500m annually, according to data from the HSE.

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Lero researcher associate, Professor Katie Crowley, who is also attached to the Ageing Research Centre (ARC) at UL, said: “For the elderly, having a fear of falling significantly increases the chance of having a fall, and emerging evidence suggests that having monitoring technology reduces this fear, leading to improved mobility for the older person.”

Lero lead researcher, Professor Ita Richardson, believes a growing need exists to modify and integrate occupational home practice with innovative technology and software. 

“Initially, we need to understand how older people’s lives and the lives of their formal and informal carers could change through TEC,” she said.

The Lero team also includes Dr Ann-Marie Morrissey, who brings occupational therapy expertise to the project. 

The two-year €140,000 research programme is being part-funded by Shannon-headquartered Ei Electronics, an electronics manufacturing and exporting company.

Ei Electronics head of research and development Mike Keegan said they are delighted to work with Lero, whose work in connected health, driverless vehicles, smart communities and other areas is world-leading.

“At Ei Electronics, we are all about deploying dependable technologies to improve people’s living environment today and into the future,” he said.

“Where lives are at risk, especially among older adults living independently, nothing can be left to chance, and we hope this programme can make life less stressful for those living by themselves and those supporting that independence,”

Lero is headquartered at UL and is funded by Taighde Éireann (Research Ireland). Lero brings together expert software teams from universities and institutes of technology across Ireland in a co-ordinated centre of research excellence with a strong industry focus. 

Lero’s research spans a wide range of subjects, including software engineering, information systems and human-computer interaction in areas such as driverless cars, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, fintech, govtech, smart communities, agtech and healthtech.