Today, approximately 10 percent of the world's population is over the age of 60; by 2050 this proportion will have more than doubled. Moreover, the greatest rate of increase is amongst the "oldest old," people aged 85 and over. While many older adults remain healthy and productive, overall this segment of the population is subject to physical and cognitive impairment at higher rates than younger people. Now new technologies that incorporate artificial intelligence techniques to support older adults and help them cope with the changes of aging, in particular with cognitive decline.
We are in the midst of a profound demographic shift, moving from aworld in which the majority of the population is relatively young to one in which a significant proportion of people are over the age of 65. This change poses both a challenge and an opportunity for the design of intelligent technology.
It is important to keep in mind that there is growth not just in the absolute number of older adults, but also in the proportion of the population that is over the age of 65; there will thus be fewer young people to help older adults cope with the challenges of aging. While human caregiving cannot and will not be replaced, assistive technologies that can supplement human caregiving have the potential to improve the quality of life for both older adults and their caregivers.
In particular, assistive technologies now being developed may enable older adults to "age in place," that is, remain living in their homes for longer periods of time. A large body of research has shown that older Americans prefer to maintain independent households as long as possible. Additionally, institutionalization has an enormous financial cost, not only for elders and their caregivers, but also for governments. In the United States, the federal government, under the auspices of Medicaid and Medicare, pays for nearly 60 percent of the nation's $132 billion annual nursing home bill, and similar expenses areincurred throughout other nations. Thus technology that can help seniors live at home longer provides a "win-win" effect, both improving quality of life and potentially saving enormous amounts of money. Other technology can help those elders who are in assisted living or skilled nursing care facilities maintain more independence there.
A range of artificial intelligence techniques has been used in the design of advanced assistive technologies. Assistive technology can assist older people with cognitive impairment in one or more of the following ways:
(1) by providing assurance that the elder is safe and is performing necessary daily activities, and, if not, alerting a caregiver
(2) by helping the elder compensate for her impairment, assisting in the performance of daily activities
(3) by assessing the elder's cognitive status
Assurance systems aim primarily at ensuring safety and well-being and at reducing caregiver burden, by tracking an elder's behavior and providing up-to-date status reports to a caregiver. Compensation systems provide guidance to people as they carry out their daily activities, reminding them of what they need to do and how to do it. Assessment systems attempt to infer how well a person is doing-what her current cognitive level of functioning is-based on continual observation of her performance of routine activities.
Interest in intelligent assistive technology for older adults is growing rapidly. Within the past five to eight years, research groups investigating the use of AI techniques for such technology have formed at more than a dozen different universities and industrial research laboratories. Workshops have been held at major AI conferences as well as at gerontology conferences.