A global demographic shift towards the senior side is triggering an explosion of new smart technologies and applications developed to help older adults maintain their health, independence, and quality of life, especially in their own homes but also in congregate settings like elder care facilities. Aging in the digital age means growing old with AI, cloud computing, interactive programs, wireless devices, and sensors, monitors and cameras galore.

Canada’s senior population — those age 65 and older — is expected to grow by 68 per cent over the next twenty years, continuing a trajectory that’s been in place here for decades and closely following trends worldwide. In 1977, there were about two million older Canadians. Today there are some 7.8 million.  In just ten years, nearly a quarter of all Canadians will be over 65.

So it’s not surprising that support for a growing population is mirrored by support for technological innovation to support all those folks. Private sector companies, industry partnerships and inter-governmental programs are spurring — and funding — development of a wide range of digital gadgets, devices, platforms and systems for seniors, their families and caregivers.

In real-world pilot projects and product demonstrations in-situ, at industry trade shows and exhibitions, or in local open houses and community gatherings, new solutions to support seniors and enable aging-in-place are being widely shown and well-received; they can include virtual and telemedicine platforms, remote patient monitoring devices, and systems to improve communication and information-sharing among patients, caregivers, and healthcare professionals.

Such was the case at a recent open house presentation at the OpenLab at Toronto’s University Health Network. Meetings here often include simple storytelling, as folks involved with aging-in-place programs and seniors’ initiatives share their experiences with the wider community. Often, new assistive technologies are described and demonstrated: VR (virtual reality) headsets, for examples, are widely used in elder care settings for therapy, relaxation, memory-massage and other supportive applications. There’s a VR project underway right now that’s not only evaluating different VR programs and platforms but will eventually see a kind of guide or set of standards for the production and delivery of health-related VR content.

The OpenLab session (with in-person and online attendees) also heard from Hugh Cameron of Awake AI, a Montreal-based tech start-up that’s developing an AI-enabled technology platform for use in seniors’ residences and care facilities.

Cameron, a longtime entrepreneur and now founder of AwakeAI, described how the system uses video cameras and computer vision algorithms to monitor and analyze an elder’s activities and behaviours on a secure and private platform. The system assesses a senior in real-time and in the context of their living environment to make informed judgments about their health and status. Optical sensors and computer technology are used as opposed to wearables, and the cloud-based AI-powered system is also human-backed or mediated.

It’s constantly learning to identify settings and situations a senior might encounter as it and the development team review and evaluate activity logs of older adults, whether they’re following normal patterns or encountering new challenges.  The system is now being piloted in elder care settings in Quebec and China, and importantly, it is building up its database of identifiable incidents and detectable situations to enhance its performance and elder care overall.

AwakeAI is one of several AI-start-ups and companies supported by MILA, a Montreal-based artificial intelligence research institute that brings together researchers from industry, academia and beyond to support product research and development. It’s another of those many institutions and programs supporting development of senior-supportive technology.

The future of AgeTech in Canada is also supported through initiatives from AGE-WELL, MEDTEQ+ and envisAGE, organizations involved in the development of not just seniors’ technology, but standards, best practices and processes in health technologies overall (like OpenLab, AGE-WELL is also hosted by the University Health Network in Toronto).

Recently, funding for 16 different projects, technologies and services for healthy aging was announced; totalling some $20 million, the funds include contributions from collaborative government and industry partners and through the envisAGE initiative itself.

“We are delighted to support these projects that enable SMEs to deliver solutions directly to older adults, caregivers, and health care and service providers, while mobilizing industrial, academic, clinical and community sectors across Canada. This shows that together, we can make a real difference in our quality of life as we age and that technology should be among the solutions,” announced Sabrina Boutin, Executive Director of envisAGE and Vice President of MEDTEQ+.

Among the projects supported, a B.C. company called NovaSense Technology is developing something called the SmartSheet. Designed for continuous patient monitoring, this soft, flexible stretchable sensor array is designed to avert what are known as pressure ulcers, or ‘bedsores’, which affect millions of people every year. The sensor array is used in combination with data-driven algorithms to enhance patient care.

Whether on your wrist or on your bed, connected devices come in many shapes and sizes and they all can help support patient health care in many settings. Tellingly, they can also free up or make easier the many tasks health care providers must deliver. Connected devices can monitor patients’ clinical data and vital signs in real time, checking and describing a patient’s heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen levels and more. In case of any problems, alerts can be immediately sent and direct contact between a senior and caregiver can be established.

A new health care solution from a company called Virtuose brings together into one place all the important health data and patient information such multiple connected devices can collect.

The Virtuose Console is a cloud-based (SaaS) solution that emphasizes the need for the privacy and security of all that important health information, and the company says it does so by using data transmission and hosting systems with SSL/TLS encryption, configurable two-factor authentication, permissions management and event logging, all done on cloud-based AWS platforms in Canada.

There’s little doubt the sophistication and capabilities of technology designed to support seniors is increasing on a daily basis through the efforts of companies like these, and many others.

Another envisAGE-supported company takes the health tech concept to an extreme: autonomous health care using a human digital twin, or HDT. Like a complete copy of all vital statistics and digital readouts, the twin can be compared to the real thing for medical assessment or even treatment. Think of a digital duplicate of you, monitored by an Al-driven, real-time, comprehensive medical System of Systems (SoS). Now think of you in the unique conditions of outer space, and you’ll get one idea of what Baüne is developing at its Edmonton facilities.

Wearable tech and medical devices are embedded into a full body space suit to deliver effective, comprehensive health care in a spacecraft or during a spacewalk. As space travel evolves, perhaps even as life here on Earth get more challenging, Baüne’s twinning of data, AI, health sciences and new medical technologies may embody the house call we all need, whether delivered to seniors at home or astronauts in space.

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