TRIL Newsletter October 2009
Welcome to the October 2009 TRIL newsletter. We have engaged in many activities since the last newsletter earlier in the year. In this newsletter we bring you news on TRIL's many research activities - whether at conferences or in peer-reviewed journals or at exhibitions. We report on the launch of revision 2.0 of the BioMOBIUS™ Research Platform, and we bring you some of the media coverage TRIL has received recently.
We welcome your comments and feedback on our newsletters, info@trilcentre.org.
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600th TRIL Clinic participant assessed
The TRIL Clinic completed the assessment of its 600th participant on Friday 22nd May. The Clinic assessed its first participant in August 2007. The Clinic was established by TRIL in St. James’s Hospital, Dublin, to address the physical, cognitive and social consequences of ageing. As a key component of the TRIL research programme, the TRIL Clinic performed comprehensive health assessments of people over 60 years old. The Clinic has now assessed over 600 older people, including 400 who have experienced falls and 200 who have not.
The people who came to the TRIL Clinic came from all walks of life and through a variety of channels, including general practitioners and public health workers as well as other units within St. James’s Hospital. More than half of participants were self-referred, often encouraged by neighbours, friends or family members who have been to the Clinic or who heard about through the media.
The Clinic goal was to take a 360-degree look at the older person from a variety of perspectives. The Clinic team consisted of specialist doctors and nurses who conducted the medical assessments, as well as research assistants, medical physicists and administrators, who supported this team. A key contribution to the success of the clinic came from Clodagh, our clinical research nurse, who was in touch with every participant before they came to the Clinic.
The assessments performed at the TRIL Clinic have uncovered a number of health conditions that otherwise might have gone undetected, from heart disease to early cognitive decline and hidden depression. Many of the participants have gone on to join other TRIL projects such as Building Bridges, Engineering Alertness and the Balance and Strength exercise programme.
The lives of many older people have been changed as a result of going through the TRIL Clinic. The data gathered is a huge asset for TRIL and for ageing research in general. The results arising from this work have the potential to change many lives in the future.
The work of the Clinic and its use of technology was recognised by the awarding of the prestigious Irish Healthcare Award 2008 for the Best Use of Information Technology to the Clinic.
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TRIL research to feature in a number of journals in the coming months
TRIL researchers have had papers accepted in a number of international peer-reviewed journals.
TRIL paper accepted by Age and Ageing. The paper is titled, 'Do Older Pedestrians Have Enough Time to Cross Roads in Dublin? A Critique of the Traffic Management Guidelines Based on Clinical Research Findings', authored by Dr Roman Romero-Ortuno, Dr Lisa Cogan, Clodagh U Cunningham and Prof Rose Anne Kenny.
TRIL paper accepted by Anthropology News. The paper titled, 'After the Dust Settled: From National Outcry to Quiet Acceptance in the Republic of Ireland', is authored by Dr Cormac Sheehan, Dr Cathy Bailey and Dr Susan Squires.
TRIL paper accepted by Clinical Autonomic Research. The paper is titled "Intolerance to Initial Orthostasis relates to Systolic BP changes in elders" (short title: "BP predictors of orthostatic intolerance"), by Dr Roman Romero-Ortuno, Dr Lisa Cogan, Dr Chie Wei (Mimi) Fan & Prof Rose Anne Kenny.
TRIL paper accepted by Blood Pressure Monitoring journal. The paper is titled 'Using the Finometer® to examine gender differences in hemodynamic responses to orthostasis in older people', with authors Dr Roman Romero-Ortuno, Dr Lisa Cogan, Tim Foran, Dr Mimi Fan and Prof Rose Anne Kenny.
All of TRIL's publications can be viewed on the TRIL website, www.trilcentre.org, under the research tab.
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TRIL technology at Age Action and Innovation Dublin
TRIL researchers showcased TRIL technology at Age Action
's National Conference Imagine It! in Croke Park on Monday 28th September. The conference was one of many events that took place around the country for Positive Ageing Week 2009.
On Thursday 15th of October the School of Computer Science and Informatics UCD hosted an Innovative Technology exhibit as part of the Dublin Innovation 2009 festival (http://www.csi.ucd.ie/innovate). This event consisted of exciting technology demos, an invited talk and a lively panel discussion on the following topic: 'Should all academic research activity be informed by commercial needs?'
TRIL technology was demonstrated before the invited talk and again after the panel discussion.
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eHealthInsider reports on TRIL's Building Bridges
TRIL Centre’s Building Bridges technology featured recently in eHealthInsider, the independent online news and information service dedicated to healthcare information technology issues. They reported on TRIL’s third Building Bridges home trial, which commenced in August and finished last week. The trial, which lasted eight weeks, explored experience, usage and the impact of the Building Bridges system on social connectedness. Devices were installed in the homes of 20 older people in Dublin and Kildare. The participants could use the device to make one-to-one and group calls, send messages and listen to ‘broadcasts’. The broadcasts were played daily, and were followed by a ‘group chat’. The broadcasts were designed to provide ‘common ground’ between participants through a shared experience. Topics were varied (e.g. news, documentaries,
stories and comedy), and also included broadcasts recorded by TRIL researchers from all research (e.g. memory support, brain fitness and fear of falling).
Following previous home trials, subtle interface modifications have been made to improve usability. A new feature, the Tea Room, has also been added. This is a chat room that is open all day and all night. It also includes a ‘window on the world’ feature from webcams located in various outdoor locations. This provides interesting scenes for users to look at when in the Tea Room, as well as another mode of shared experience to support social interaction.
As well as deploying the technology in 20 homes, a PC client version of the Building Bridges software was being sent to 35 other users, who are friends and family members of the participants. This allowed the participants to contact people in their existing social network who already own a computer. Users of the PC client can also send digital photos, which can then be displayed on the screen of the older person’s Building Bridges device. This allows the device to double-up as a digital photo frame when it is not in use. The participants’ family members are based in the U.K., Spain and Australia as well as Ireland, making this TRIL’s first global home trial of technology.
Using interviews, questionnaires and remote logging, the trial explored user experience, usage patterns and impact on social connections. In addition, remote logs of screen presses and interaction errors will help evaluate interface usability for older adults with little or no experience with computers. The eHealthInsider article can be read here.
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More silver dollars than green ones
The TRIL Centre featured in an article in the Irish Independent business section in August. The article, titled Digital healthcare: ‘There will be more silver dollars in the world than green ones’, also featured in SiliconRepublic.com and digital21.ie. In it Niamh Scannell, TRIL’s Industry Director describes the work of TRIL, discusses the challenges presented by the world’s ageing population, and highlights how these challenges could provide Ireland with an opportunity to become a leader in the field of digital healthcare. Read the full article here.
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TRIL at the British Society of Gerontology Conference
TRIL's research, presented by both Dr Susan Squires and Dr Cathy Bailey, was very well received at the BSG Conference in Bristol held at the beginning of September. In the audience was Dr. Gloria Gutman, an internationally known and respected author and advocate for older adults as well as a fellow of the Gerontological Society of America and the International Association of Gerontology. Following the session Dr. Gutman complimented both researchers on their work and invited them to organise a session for the International Society for Gerontechnology 7th World Conference which is to be held in Vancover in May 2010. In addition Susan was later approached by the editor of Gerontology Review and asked to submit a paper to the journal.
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TTP paper presented at the 31st Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC'09)
TRIL’s Zoran Škrba presented a paper on behalf of the authors at the 31st Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC'09) held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA in September. IEEE EMBS is the world's largest international society of Biomedical Engineers, with 8,200 members residing in some 70 countries around the world. Approximately 1400 people attended the conference.
The paper, titled ‘Objective real-time assessment of walking and turning in elderly adults’, discussed a TRIL study on the use of video technology to unobtrusively determine gait and stability. These are currently measured by body worn systems or other invasive systems in a controlled clinical or laboratory setting. The paper was co-authored by: Zoran Škrba, Brian O‘Mullane, Barry R. Greene, Cliodhna Ni Scanaill, Chie Wei Fan, Aaron Quigley and Paddy Nixon.
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TRIL paper at Interspeech 2009, Brighton, U.K.
TRIL postgraduate student Villiam Rapcan presented a paper at Interspeech 2009 in Brighton in September. This is the biggest annual conference on speech communication science and technology. In addition TRIL’s research fellow Dr Shona D’Arcy was on the organisation committee for the conference.
Villiams’ paper, titled ‘The Use of Telephone Speech Recordings for Assessment and Monitoring of Cognitive Function in Elderly People’ discussed how speech characteristics, used for monitoring cognitive function on older people, can be reliably extracted from telephone quality speech. This could help with the development of a less time consuming and expensive assessment tool.
Shona presented a paper at the conference last year, held in Brisbane, Australia, titled ‘Speech as a Means of Monitoring Cognitive Function of Elderly’, which formed a precursor to Villiam’s study.
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Falls article published in GM (formerly Geriatric Medicine)
TRIL’s Falls research was featured in the June edition of GM, formerly Geriatric Medicine. The title of the article is 'Research to reduce falls in older people: the TRIL Centre'. The article discusses how falls and the resulting disabilities, and the fear of falling, can inhibit the ability of older people to live independently. It talks about how TRIL is researching and testing technologies to help identify and assess potential unique behavioural markers that may help indicate an older person’s risk of falling. These indicators could be: how they cross a room, the change in the height of their steps, drops in blood pressure that cause dizziness or blackouts. TRIL research could have a positive effect on falls prevention and on the lives of older people.
GM is the leading journal concerned with older people's healthcare and plays a pivotal role in helping readers meet the challenge of managing related diseases. It was first published in 1970 under the title Modern Geriatrics, and more recently Geriatric Medicine. It has a total circulation of 23,000. Every issue of GM has practical clinical articles written by leaders in their field that exemplify best practice in all the therapeutic areas relevant to the care of older people as well as all the latest news and advance reports, which relay important developments in the care of older people from key international medical meetings. GM is the only healthcare journal in the UK focusing on care of the older patient. Ref: Geriatric Medicine, www.gerimed.co.uk. Volume 39, No. 6, June 2009 page 326-327
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TRIL at the Intel EMEA Research and Innovation Conference (ERIC)
TRIL's research and researchers featured at the Intel EMEA Research and Innovation Conference (ERIC) which took place on the Intel campus in Leixlip, Co. Kildare, in September. TRIL's Falls PI Prof Rose Anne Kenny gave the Digital Health Keynote address at the conference. This was subsequently featured in the Irish Times. Read the article here.
TRIL and Intel personnel demonstrated TRIL technology to the press and conference attendees, resulting in various European media outlets reporting on TRIL research:
Het Parool, a Dutch daily newspaper.
Compagnon-Parfait.fr, original article here (in French).
Teknik360, original article here (in Swedish).
This article tells about the TRIL project and the underlying problems it is supposed to help solve. The journalist really makes an effort to show what Intel's technologies and research will be able to help us with as the average age of our population increases and our means of healthcare won't be enough using today’s technologies. Quote from the article: “Did you think that Intel only engaged in the manufacturing of microprocessors and supporting hardware? So did Intel until a couple of years ago when it was realised that the company only served a part of the market, namely the hardware manufacturing. Now, Intel aims at the second half as well, to support humanity with other things than computers.”
The BioMOBIUS™ Research Platform was also reviewed in Teknik360, original article here (in Swedish).
In addition TRIL personnel gave a number of presentations during the Digital Health track.
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BioMOBIUS™ Research Platform 2.0 launch
The TRIL Centre launched revision 2.0 of its BioMOBIUS™ Research Platform in July. The BioMOBIUS™ research platform was developed by TRIL Centre researchers and engineers. It is a closely integrated collection of hardware and software components that support the rapid deployment of biomedical applications in drag and drop graphical programming environments that require the collection of a wide variety of datasets such as physiological and/or kinematic data. BioMOBIUS™ can be readily used in a variety of settings, ranging from research laboratories to people’s homes. The BioMOBIUS™ research platform is focused at researchers, clinicians and therapists who need, in the course of their work, to monitor and analyse the activity or other physiological characteristics of their patients or research subjects.
The new features and enhancements include:
* X10 Integration
* Database connectivity
* New Graphing features
* New block profiling/debugging tools
* Documentation architecture revised
* TimeSeries Datatype
* Vista Compatibility
* New SDK
The TRIL Centre, with Intel Corporation, ran a workshop at Intel’s Leixlip site in early September focusing on the new features and enhancements of the BioMOBIUS™ Research Platform 2.0 release.
For more information on the BioMOBIUS™ Research Platform see the BioMOBIUS™ website www.biomobius.org
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Eric Dishman blogging about Healthcare Reform
Intel Digital Health has set up a Healthcare@Intel blog with Eric Dishman, Intel Fellow & Director of Health Innovation and Policy at Intel Corporation, as the founding contributor. Healthcare reform is a hot issue in the US at the moment. Eric fervently believes that the most important link in the healthcare chain is the patient, and to achieve true reform, focus of care must be shifted from the institution to the individual, from the hospital to the home, and from population-based to personalised care. Intel's goal is to share information about a new vision of “personal health”—a vision that includes intelligent policy reform focused on innovation that will enable them to adapt quickly to changing healthcare and demographic trends. In so doing, Intel can help the U.S. lead the world in 21st century healthcare technologies and services—including some that we
may not yet be able to imagine.
Eric's introductory blog titled 'Searching for Health Reform In All The Wrong Places' was posted on 17th July with nearly 30 blog posts to date! Eric writes passionately from the standpoint of an advocate of patients, a son of two retired parents and a proud social scientist in the Digital Health Group, who started its research programme 10 years ago to explore personal health technologies for disease management, independent living, and wellness at home.
You can read what Eric has to say here: http://blogs.intel.com/healthcare/
Eric also occasionally posts updates to the Support Personal Healthcare Reform group on facebook: www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=116932733512 , he also Twitters occasionally: www.twitter.com/ericdishman .
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