Supporting independent living of the elderly using Android devices | Customer Feedback vol.3

Kuwahara：: As a prototype I am fully satisfied. I think they did a really good job. For the elderly and those with declining cognitive functions, reminding these people to do things when living independently can be really inconvenient. For example asking them to brush their teeth or change clothes. Without asking those specific things they may go the whole day without doing it.; Dealing with that we used a smart device combined with things like YouTube and Google Calendar, and so, for example, at a certain time there’ll be a video message that says something like “Grandma, it’s time to change your clothes.” Messages that are registered ahead of time will play on the tablet. It’s a way to allow people to live a bit more independently.; We collaborated with Chiba Rosai Hospital in 2003 using a PC version, and had great results using it with patients just out of the hospital. But using the PC version is difficult. It was inconvenient due to PC trouble. With an Android, it operates comparatively stable, and you can control everything on the cloud, the maintenance on the contents on the server is really simple. Meaning that the simplicity could help.

Kuwahara：: The doctors at Chiba Rosai Hospital (presently Waseda University) that I worked with said to use a smart phone if you have dementia ― particularly that those with dementia ought to use one. That’s because you can manage your schedule on Google calendar, you can use photos as a memo, and there are functions for simple adjustments. The facial recognition of everyone you meet is left over. Every record of your actions is on the smartphone and you can upload that to the cloud and look it up when you forget. Everyone can save memos when they remember something and look at it later. Until now you couldn’t keep a PC with you for daily life, but now since you can, we’re hoping that the elderly and those with dementia begin gradually using smartphones.

Kuwahara：: There are people who think that the elderly can’t use smartphones or tablets, but they actually can. For example, I’m from Tokushima in a very poor village near Yamamura, and recently they’re developing a lot. The reason is, the older men and women are going into the mountain and gathering leaves and branches for use as ornamentation at places like luxury restaurants. They’re managing all the shipping with smartphones. 80 and 90 year old women are looking at their smartphone and saying “Oh, we got an order, let’s go!” So if the motivation is there, the elderly can use a smartphone without concern. That’s how good the interface has become. In the future, 10, 20 years from now, it will be a really big concern if people with dementia don’t have smartphones. Now the elderly, particularly if they have dementia, are averse to having to learn something new. Even if you say you’ll bring them one, they don’t like it. However, in 10 years the elderly won’t be able to let go of their cellphones. That’s how easy it’s gotten to live with them. Whether the elderly, or someone with dementia, I think the world is becoming more convenient for their daily life.

Kanda：: Until now we’ve developed software with a specific amount of money under specific conditions. Then an open source platform like Android comes out, and on top of that, a degree of motivation for the platform with applications developed on the net by various people, and all the ideas that come from such a system ― I think there’s no limits to the possibilities. However, when you think of it as a business, it’s very important to have a professional level. Even a university student can upload their own creation, for example at 100 yen per download and when 10,000 people download it that equals 1,000,000 yen. In the software industry, becoming open source is a revolution.

Supporting independent living of
the elderly using Android devices