Project 176603

Many of the common diseases that affect older adults such as osteoarthritis, visual impairment and stroke compromise mobility. Adaptation to these deficits will occur amongst those who maintain a certain level of activity. It is very important that older adults participate in instrumental activities of daily living (iADL) and regular physical activity, in order to maintain functional independence and age healthily.Our proposed and emerging research will provide the basis for an innovative exercise regime allowing interventions with embedded outcome measures to help older adults maintain or restore safe, independent outdoor mobility. The proposed screening, tele-gaming and tele-monitoring tools, systems and applications have been motivated by the need to extend long-term rehabilitation services and health care to the community and home settings via telerehabilitation. The premise underlying this work is that people who are active in their own care and who interact with a prepared, informed, proactive health care team will likely improve and sustain function and be productive in the long term. Principal outcomes of this work are to establish: a) eHealth tools for treatment and objective assessment of balance and mobility behaviors and b) secure, objective and verifiable rehabilitation PORTAL and a knowledge-based expert system.