Organizers

Michelle J. Johnson,Ph.D. Assistant Professor Robotics Research Lab, Dept. of Phys. Medicine & Rehabilitation, Medical College of Wisconsin (USA)	Takanori Shibata, Ph.D. Professor Bio-Robotics Division, Robotics Department, Mechanical Engineering Laboratory, AIST (JP)	Silvestro Micera, Ph.D. Assistant Professor ARTS Lab, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa (I)

Introduction to the workshop

The world population is rapidly aging. This trend has several implications, including: (i) a larger number of older people in absolute and relative terms; (ii) a considerably larger number of “older” elderly people; (iii) a smaller number of informal carers (e.g., family carers); (iv) a smaller productive workforce to contribute to the financing of formal health and social services.

These trends pose significant challenges to the organization of health and social care services. On one hand, there will be more frail and disabled older people in need for social, home and health-care services, both in short and long-term perspectives. On the other hand, the number of informal carers is constantly getting smaller, and pressures for cost-containment of formal services are increasing.

For this reason, the issues related to the aging of the population must be addressed from different points of view. Gerontechnology, concerned with research on the biological, psychological, social, and medical aspects of ageing, can help elderly people in order to identify and slow down the effects of the age-related modifications of the (central and peripheral) neural and musculo-skeletal systems. In particular, this approach can (partly) restore sensory-motor performance increasing the quality of life and the ability of the elderly people of participating in daily life activities increasing the time they can live at home independently and reducing the hospitalization time.

The aim of this workshop is to describe the most innovative and interesting research activities in this field with a specific attention to the clinical aspects of ageing. It is important to point out that these applications are not only related to the development of “rehabilitation devices” but also to the analysis of age-related modifications of performance in elders not affected by any disability (“frail elders”).