As we grow older some of those things that we used to do with
ease and which importantly probably enabled us to lead
very independent lives can sometimes get just that little bit
more difficult. But here at the Catalyst in Newcastle
innovations that have been developed by experts from
Newcastle University and from the National Innovation Centre
for Ageing are really helping older people to live longer
lives and better lives.
Here in the workshop people from all walks of life
are helping to shape future products and services.
It really is a clever use of technology that will help us
all to remain independent.
Now I’m just coming into what's known as the Driving Lab which
is really designed so that we can keep older drivers safe and
still in the driving seat and here we've got Ian who is a
member of a group called Voice. Now this is a collection of
older drivers who are using their experience to help
develop what is actually needed and then test and design the
products that come out as a result. So Ian just tell me
what are you doing at the moment?
I'm doing a test on
the vehicle
and when the results are done they'll compare my reaction
times as an older person
with the reaction times of a younger person. And that will give them more
knowledge and instinct than developing the computer side of
the controls.
So you're actually driving a proper car with a computer
image in front of you, yes? Yes. What sort of things do
they throw at you to test your reactions?
Well I'm addicted to the news, so they’ve given me the
news on this program here. So I'm reading the news here as
I drive down the road.
But now the important thing is that this is a
self-driving car.
If the car's sensors that there's something wrong it will
tell me, then the human being has to take over from the car.
And then I have to analyse the problem come up with a solution
for it and carry out the solution. And hopefully
after a couple of minutes everything gets back to Sleepy
Hollow and normal.
The trouble is in a real emergency
you probably wouldn't have a couple of minutes would you?
No.
That's what the, that's what they're testing that length of
time. The emergency time.
How’d you do?
I'm not as good as a 24 year old.
Can I ask how old you are?
77
We wouldn’t expect you to be, would you? But still you know your
reaction still kicks in, does it?
I drive, I have my own car, my own
little car. And so. It's routine, most of it.
Apart from that fraction of time where my heart goes on the
screen says “Emergency ahead.” “Emergency. Take control of the vehicle.”
Yeah. And then that's when I have to multitask.
So its made you a better driver think?
Yes. Yes possibly, yeah.
And what do you think you've learnt or you've indicated
as a result of what you do that's going to help the
University and the research that they're doing to help older
drivers in the future?
There are more and more old people in the world. We have a
lot more of them as well.
Life's changing very quickly. We have to run to catch up with
the younger generation. And anything that you have to tell
a machine. About the difference between a younger person and an
older person. I'm all in favour of. Yeah.
Well, I tell you what I'm going to have a word now with
Dr Li who is running this just to find out what he does learn
from it. Dr Li. I mean this it looks absolutely fascinating
but what sort of things are you looking for and what do you
think you're learning?
Because driving is very important for older people to
maintain mobility and the independence however as people
age, they have age related functional decline which would
affect their safe driving ability and thereby affect
their mobility and well-being. The forthcoming automated
vehicle have the potential to help the older driver to drive
longer and safer. However to date, there are limited research
have considered older people's performance
capabilities and the requirements doing
their research.
The consequences for this would be that design the vehicle may
not be perfect for the older people. To fuel this
research gap. We conducted this study, try to investigate older
people's performance and capability, been interacting
with automated vehicle and also to study their
requirements to work the vehicle and we would like to
use all these information to modify the design make it more
age friendly.
I mean, immediately my thought is that when you get older
perhaps you lose concentration quicker.
Are self-driving cars actually safe for older people?
Well the important implication of the study is that the automated
system should be able to monitor the status of the
users on board in case if they suddenly
lose consciousness or have a heart attack. Do you see some
clue, to take … like … could it treat this as emergency
and maybe call the emergency service and to solve this issue.
Because at designing for the old,
is actually designing for everyone. Because if we’re
working with technology could be made age friendly.
That means it could be friendly for the users of all ages.
Wow. That’s terrific work and Ian you were a pioneer in this along
with Dr Li here. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed.
Thank you.
Here in the Catalyst, the Helen McArdle atrium, is a wonderful
space where researchers older people and businesses can all
get together and swap ideas. But more than that what it does
is honours an incredible philanthropic gift from one of
the University's greatest supporters.
And that's Mrs. Helen McArdle CBE. Now she's
the entrepreneur who set up a whole list of very successful
care homes which means that she's had first hand experience
of exactly what the challenges are as we get older and perhaps
when we're affected by ill health but more than that,
what her support and gift means is that the University can
continue to be one of the world leaders in research when it
comes to addressing priorities for old age. Helen is with me
and Helen I heard you giggling just now because you were in
the Drive Lab sat at the wheel of the car.
How did you get on? Not very well I have to say. I think my
son said actually it's how I would drive normally. But
but it was amazing absolutely amazing experience. I've had a
little bit of some experience in the Tesla. My husband has in
America but I don't quite like that, I prefer to be in control.
For someone who needs this, it's amazing.
But I mean that's only one part of the laboratory here because
we've got the Gait Lab as well as the Drive Lab. And I know
you've seen the work in both areas. What do you make of
what they're doing here?
I'm so excited. I think it's absolutely wonderful. The fact
that we're actually spending time and energy on the elderly
I think is amazing because often one could say, it’s a poor
relation in a way but I'm so passionate about the elderly.
It's been a big part of my life for so long. No I think it's
absolutely amazing.
This building brings together work which is helping us remain
active and independent as we get older. But we know that as
that happens we can't always rely on good health. So as well
as developing products and services that enable us to get
around and stay in our own homes for as long as possible.
Work here in Newcastle is providing quicker and more
accurate diagnosis of diseases and conditions.
Ríona this looks like a very passive form of research.
What exactly is going on here?
Yes, so this is an instrumented
walkway which means that there's thousands of sensors
embedded inside it. And when a person walks across that
that gives me an electronic footprints like the one that
you can see in the computer here. And that can
tell me lots of different information about how a
person walks. So it can tell me things like, how fast or slow
they walk, how much they change their steps as they walk and
how different the left and right foot steps look for
each other. And that can allow me to look at what kind of
pattern of walking they've got which might indicate that
they're having problems in their brain such as dementia.
That is an exciting development isn't it? - Absolutely - I mean because I know
a little bit about research into dementia and if you're
able to do that, how much in advance of someone developing
dementia can you pick up the signs that they may actually
have the disease?
So research has indicated that it can develop about, walking
problems can develop about 12 to six years prior to
developing dementia. But at the moment we don't know what type
of dementia you would go on to develop. So that's really
where my research during my PHD came in. I took people
who had mild dementia of Alzheimer's disease and Lewy
body disease. These are two of the most common
neurodegenerative types of dementia and although they
sound very different they can actually look very similar when
you go to see somebody in the clinic. So we're trying to
find better ways to diagnose what type of dementia
you've got.
Make sure you get the right care and treatment. And the study
that I conducted we found that people with different types of
dementia have unique walking patterns. So people at
Lewy body disease changed their steps a lot more, they walk
with very different left and right foot steps from each
other in comparison to Alzheimer's disease and both
dementia subtypes looked completely different in their
walking from the way an older adult without any type of
dementia walked.
You would have found this fascinating when you
had people coming into your homes with a form of dementia?
Oh yes absolutely. I remember my first care home and the
first experience I had of someone with Alzheimer's and it
was just so sad because I remember a daughter visiting
her mother every day and yet her mother didn't even
recognize her. So I took a particular interest in it.
But once you've you've identified that that person has
Alzheimer's or has the chance of having Alzheimer’s. Can they
change their lifestyle at all to help?
I think there's a lot of research going into how we can
slow down the progression of dementia in terms of
lifestyle factors. They've identified certain
things such as eating a Mediterranean diet.
Making or increasing what kind of activity you've got and
particularly if we think about we're trying to predict what
type of dementia person has. If we're saying OK it's 12
years before hand, you're at risk of developing this type
of dementia. A third of two types of dementia
are preventable. Let's try and turn this around.
This is really exciting research I think and it has
such wonderful potential for helping people who get dementia
diagnosis to be able to do something to either prevent or
at least slow down the onset of it doesn't it?
Preventative treatments are always so good.
Yes definitely
I mean I just
find that really really exciting.
Thank you.
You must be so excited to think, this is going on in
your building.
Oh yes absolutely as I said I'm going
to be dragging everyone, all of my older friends are going to be
coming along.
Oh well it's wonderful research. So thank
you very much. Thank you telling us about it. Thank you.
Thank you.
The work that you've done has that led you to think that
perhaps we are an ageing population more and more people
are getting that telegram from the queen every year because, you know,
more and more people are getting to 100.
Have you felt in the work that you've done that perhaps the
ageing population is one that's been largely ignored and
underrepresented when it comes to technology, to new advances
and this is now an opportunity to put that right?
Well I think that's right. Yes. But when you remember 30 years
ago, so when I started caring for the elderly, the people who
were coming into my care homes were about 60 or so especially
in the mining communities around here where they'd had a
very very hard life. And some of them just wanted to be
looked after. But technology has moved so quickly in the
last 20 years or so.
It's now nice to be able to see that we are thinking about the
elderly and how we can improve things for them.
But also perhaps people haven't thought as carefully about how we might
look after our ageing population.
No, I don’t think they have.
No, what would you like to see them doing,
that would make it so much better?
Each individual is an individual and depends on their
their life, their expectancy, have they got families around them?
Some people are just lonely - yes - others have a lot
of family and I've noticed when I've been in Spain and some of
the European countries if you're in hospital, they're all
the families come in and look after you. But now a lot of
families here are working as well and they don't have the time
to be able to devote to family. So I think more centred around
individual needs.
If somebody retires in their 60s, their 70s and they live
until they're in their 80s their 90s or even to 100.
It's it's almost a third of their lives that we now have to
accommodate isn't it?
That's right. I didn't think about that. It is.
But I suppose people are more independent now and they
would go into care facilities as we know them much later.
I think, you know when you compare because I did research
in Florida,
Prior to to building some of the care homes here and they
have different
Issues there. People are going into care homes or nursing
homes there and they might be 70 driving in.
Unfortunately for us here. We were finding that the vast
majority people coming into care were people who needed a
lot of intensive care and couldn't always enjoy the
facilities that you were hoping that they would be able to.
So it was more like an extension of
a hospital.
Well the building has got the atrium has got your name on it.
Helen McArdle and the work that's done inside the Catalyst
here is very much attached to this building. So you're going
to be coming and keeping an eye on them?
Oh I will be. Trust me. Oh trust me I will be.
Yes. No, I'm delighted with it. It's wonderful. Thank you.
Thank you.
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