Projects

A Brand New Sense explores the potential of an intuitive and accessible movement sonification system to encourage physical activity of older adults in intergenerational settings.

In conjunction with the Officers Association and Forces Employment Charity, this project develops a career support service that helps veterans aged 50+ to find a second career after leaving the military. It aims to help veterans who are often under-employed after leaving the military but who can benefit from personalised, peer-to-peer support like mentoring, job trials and career planning to find a ‘new mission’ in the civilian job market.

As the NHS waiting list soars above six million people, older people with chronic conditions face worsening symptoms, more complicated surgeries, and reduced quality of life. The NHS is promoting exercise as a “miracle cure”. But we’re living in a physical inactivity pandemic, with only limited success in getting older people to be more active. We will develop a toolkit for health professionals to build community-based group exercise programmes for older adults with chronic conditions.

Increasing numbers of people are living with dementia and as the disease progresses, many people find it difficult to form new relationships and experience depression. The project aims to ameliorate the situation through face-to-face and online workshops in which storyboards promote communication and build relationships while reducing loneliness and depression. Participants will have opportunities to talk about personal memories and they will negotiate with other workshop members to produce a group-authored story to take away.

Lives are increasingly sedentary with more time spent indoors and on screens. As we get older lack of physical activity leads to poorer health outcomes. This project engages with industry to better design our physical domestic environment and build opportunities for physical activity into everyday life. How we plan green spaces, walking and cycling connections, and community facilities all have the potential to increase health in our communities.

Supporting care homes to be more active and healthy places by increasing the activity levels of residents through engaging digital arts content, and providing training and support for care staff.

Using ‘Well-Bean’ Machines (fully equipped vans) to deliver an innovative exercise outreach service to streets and neighbourhoods with high densities of vulnerable older people, helping to improve and sustain physical and social activity levels for better health and wellbeing.

A collaboration between Active Lancashire and UCLan to develop a health screening service in the workplace, especially SMEs, via trained gym and leisure centre staff, to support people to make positive lifestyle choices such as exercising more and looking after their mental health.

Low levels of physical and mental activity have negative impacts on wellbeing associated with healthy ageing. This project is plug-and-play exercise programme designed to provide motivating and safe exercise instruction and behavioural support to improve different elements of physical function and mental wellbeing amongst older adults.

HomeCare an AI, voice-enabled smart home assistant solution that assists older people in everyday tasks and helps them combat social isolation and loneliness by connecting family, friends, and support services together.

Conventional treatments of UI (urinary incontinence) are invasive and can have side-effects. When left untreated UI can lead to people avoiding going out, increasing social isolation and reducing physical activity. This project proposes an instrumented sock containing electrodes that stimulate the tibial nerve to control UI. Unlike other nerve-stimulation treatments, the sock doesn’t require surgery or repeated hospital visits making it ideal for larger-scale trials.

The team at aiKNIT are inventing cutting edge material technology, to design programmable wearable devices that can change their material characteristics such as stiffness and elasticity, to support a patients recovery from musculoskeletal disorders. The programmable material characteristics will fit the patient’s anatomical and physiological needs in a highly personalised fashion to facilitate faster and more effective healing.

Increasing numbers of people are living with dementia and as the disease progresses, many people find it difficult to form new relationships and experience depression. The project aims to ameliorate the situation through face-to-face and online workshops in which storyboards promote communication and build relationships while reducing loneliness and depression. Participants will have opportunities to talk about personal memories and they will negotiate with other workshop members to produce a group-authored story to take away.

A game-play based immersive hearing skills training app to improve personal confidence and hearing capability in social and work environments for people with age related hearing loss.

Providing personalised care plans, that integrate creative sessions and practical support for older people and their carers, to help older people stay active, stay connected and retain independence. Promoting emotional wellbeing and quality of life.

Helping people at a stage of life most at risk of osteoporosis preserve their bone strength, is key for helping individuals stay fracture-free for as long as possible. This project aims to assess the potential to transform research regarding the benefits of bone-specific activity into a long-term population level intervention to help preserve bone health in mature adults and those living with osteoporosis.

Bia is an app that helps to keep women in midlife healthy, happy and productive in the workplace. It is co-designed by women, for women. It distils the essential, evidence-based components of exercise that are essential for the health of women in midlife. It provides a clear, motivating, structured programme to follow and is underpinned by exercise and behavioural science.

Dementia can significantly impact the lives of people who have a diagnosis, including stigma, social isolation and a lack of meaningful connection to their community. Bold (Bringing out Leaders in Dementia) is an innovative Social Leadership project that has provided opportunities for people living with dementia to take the lead in creating positive social change in their communities.

A connected guidance app that enables safer, more accessible journeys using virtual and augmented reality navigation with indoor position tracking. BriteWay-XR provides users with support from staff, family and friends alongside real-time information and intelligent routing through complex interchanges to increase confidence and independence.

This project brings together research around health support for older works with health data collection and modelling technology to develop an innovative intervention which will help individuals better understand the ways in which their health, work and wider lives interact, and will build on this understanding to offer a tool to help them more effectively navigate their health needs at work.

Interface design of proximity avoidance technology for the Centaur personal electric vehicle (PEV). The Centaur is now at the stage where the human machine interface (HMI) can be adapted for the cognitive and physical considerations of older adults within the control system design.