{"id":1745,"date":"2021-01-25T07:44:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-25T07:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/robotsforaging.cs.unh.edu\/most-students-say-their-mental-health-suffered-in-pandemic\/"},"modified":"2023-07-17T15:51:07","modified_gmt":"2023-07-17T15:51:07","slug":"most-students-say-their-mental-health-suffered-in-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robotsforaging.cs.unh.edu\/?p=1745","title":{"rendered":"UNH Awarded $2.8 Million to Develop Robots to Care for People with Alzheimer\u2019s and Dementia"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Newswise \u2014 DURHAM, N.H.\u2014Researchers at the University of New Hampshire will receive a five-year grant totaling $2.8 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop and test social assistive robots to aid in the care of individuals with Alzheimer\u2019s disease and related dementia in the comfort of their own homes.<\/p>\n

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\u201cCaring for aging adults, especially those dealing with progressive Alzheimer\u2019s and dementia, can place a high burden on family caregivers who cannot be with their care recipients 24\/7,\u201d said Sajay Arthanat, professor of occupational therapy. \u201cThe ultimate goal of this research is to help support those caregivers while keeping their family member healthy and active at home.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The interdisciplinary team of researchers created a prototype robot that has been tested in a controlled lab setting. The new grant from the NIH\u2019s National Institute on Aging would help build on their success by creating a technological framework to develop social assistive robots with more capabilities and test them in home settings. This would include compatibility with commercial devices already found in homes, like motion control cameras and sensors, to keep older adults safe and in line with their health care. For example, if a patient does not take their medication on time, a sensor strategically placed by their pill bottle would track the lack of movement\u2014indicating the patient didn\u2019t take their medicine\u2014 and would alert the assistive robot. The robot would then initiate a vocal reminder to the patient. If, after a few attempts, the patient does not respond by taking their medicine, the robot would alert a remote human caregiver who would be able to intervene.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cWith this grant, we will be able to further develop the robot\u2019s technological framework from not only using smart home devices but also artificial intelligence and wearables, like a smart watch, to help gauge the patient\u2019s activity level, health management and connectedness with caregivers,\u201d said Momotaz Begum, assistant professor of computer science.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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While this research is focused on robots to aid with Alzheimer’s and dementia care, researchers hope it may have other future applications and benefit seniors by letting them age safely in their homes.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0University of New Hampshire<\/a>\u00a0inspires innovation and transforms lives in our state, nation and world. More than 16,000 students from all 50 states and 71 countries engage with an award-winning faculty in top-ranked programs in business, engineering, law, health and human services, liberal arts and the sciences across more than 200 programs of study. A Carnegie Classification R1 institution, UNH partners with NASA, NOAA, NSF and NIH, and received $260 million in competitive external funding in FY21 to further explore and define the frontiers of land, sea and space.<\/p>\n

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Newswise \u2014 DURHAM, N.H.\u2014Researchers at the University of New Hampshire will receive a five-year grant totaling $2.8 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop and test social assistive robots to aid in the care of individuals with Alzheimer\u2019s disease and related dementia in the comfort of their own homes. \u201cCaring for aging adults, especially those dealing with progressive Alzheimer\u2019s and dementia, can place a high burden on family caregivers who cannot be with their care recipients 24\/7,\u201d said Sajay Arthanat, professor of occupational therapy. \u201cThe ultimate goal of this research is to help support those caregivers while keeping their family member healthy and active at home.\u201d The interdisciplinary team of researchers created a prototype robot that has been tested in a controlled lab setting. The new grant from the NIH\u2019s National Institute on Aging would help build on their success by creating a technological framework to develop social assistive robots with more capabilities and test them in home settings. This would include compatibility with commercial devices already found in homes, like motion control cameras and sensors, to keep older adults safe and in line with their health care. For example, if a patient does not take their medication on time, a sensor strategically placed by their pill bottle would track the lack of movement\u2014indicating the patient didn\u2019t take their medicine\u2014 and would alert the assistive robot. The robot would then initiate a vocal reminder to the patient. If, after a few attempts, the patient does not respond by taking their medicine, the robot would alert a remote human caregiver who would be able to intervene. \u201cWith this grant, we will be able to further develop the robot\u2019s technological framework from not only using smart home devices but also artificial intelligence and wearables, like a smart watch, to help gauge the patient\u2019s activity level, health management and connectedness with caregivers,\u201d said Momotaz Begum, assistant professor of computer science. While this research is focused on robots to aid with Alzheimer’s and dementia care, researchers hope it may have other future applications and benefit seniors by letting them age safely in their homes. The\u00a0University of New Hampshire\u00a0inspires innovation and transforms lives in our state, nation and world. More than 16,000 students from all 50 states and 71 countries engage with an award-winning faculty in top-ranked programs in business, engineering, law, health and human services, liberal arts and the sciences across more than 200 programs of study. A Carnegie Classification R1 institution, UNH partners with NASA, NOAA, NSF and NIH, and received $260 million in competitive external funding in FY21 to further explore and define the frontiers of land, sea and space.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3885,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,28],"tags":[40],"class_list":["post-1745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research","category-spotlight","tag-health"],"views":713,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robotsforaging.cs.unh.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robotsforaging.cs.unh.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robotsforaging.cs.unh.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robotsforaging.cs.unh.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robotsforaging.cs.unh.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1745"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/robotsforaging.cs.unh.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4148,"href":"https:\/\/robotsforaging.cs.unh.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1745\/revisions\/4148"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robotsforaging.cs.unh.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robotsforaging.cs.unh.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robotsforaging.cs.unh.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robotsforaging.cs.unh.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}