Then & Now
"I have been able to find a part of myself that I was told was gone, because of the stroke. So, the moral of my story is: Laura, STOP doubting yourself!"
Laura B., CareWheels Participant and Stroke Survivor
CareWheels is a §501(c)(3) Public Benefit Corporation founded in 2001.
We have prepared for the approaching demographic age-wave by developing innovative Gerontechnology for Elder Empowerment. The Intel Research Council awarded CareWheels three years of merit-based grants to build the first Living Laboratory for Participatory Design in Portland, Oregon. We began by exploring how the Internet of Things (IoT) could positively impact independence and quality of life with a team of younger, presenescent people like Laura who are living independently with severe disabilities. They served as resilient proxies for frail elders because they have similar, yet more stable cognitive, motor and sensory debilitations that may benefit from IoT Gerontechnology.
The CareWheels Living Lab demonstrated the value of engaging people directly to design IoT systems for their benefit. We learned which technologies worked well, and more meaningfully, we learned what helps people work well together. Technology enables the human interactions that are the essence of PeerCare. People are empowered and transformed by innovations that help them take better care of themselves by taking good care of each other. These innovations are the PeerCare Model, which provides mutual monitoring and response, and the CareBank Platform, which supports PeerCare with automated IoT monitoring and TimeBank crediting to simplify the exchange of PeerCare services and recognize their value.
Meet the CareBank Team
The Future of Home Health Care
National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine
Eric Dishman, Intel Fellow, Director of the National Institute of Health's All of Us Research Program and former General Manager of the Intel Health and Life Sciences Group, gave a keynote presentation in which he used CareWheels’ original Living Lab research to illustrate the potential of innovative tech-empowered care models to deliver triple-win benefits for elders, working age people with disabilities, and health care providers. For your convenience, Eric's hour-plus presentation has been queued up to the point where he introduces the original CareWheels TeleCare Project:
Eric Dishman, Intel Fellow, CareWheels Director Emeritus, March 2020:
I write this letter during an emerging COVID-19 crisis that is wreaking havoc upon older people. Many are succumbing to the disease at alarming rates, and many more face more loneliness and isolation than usual due to necessary social distancing. The peer-to-peer support models CareWheels has developed give us the opportunity to help older adults maintain purpose, connection, and health through low-investment technologies and programs. As an executive at Intel and now the National Institutes of Health funding promising innovations in aging-in-place and personal health solutions, I have rarely seen results as promising as what Claude and his participants have produced.
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