Smart homes and smart aging

The Associated Press has an article on a new JAMA study documenting the relationship between daily exercise and longevity:

Chores can keep elderly alive

Just doing household chores and other mundane activities of daily living is enough to help older adults live longer, new research suggests.

Elderly couch potatoes were much more likely to die within about six years than those whose lives included regular activity no more strenuous than washing dishes, vacuuming, gardening and climbing stairs, according to a study of adults age 72 to 80.

About 12 percent of people with the highest amount of daily activity died during the six-year follow-up, compared with nearly 25 percent of the least active participants.

This is the latest in several studies establishing a relationship between activity and longevity among elders. Taken together, they send a clear message about the design of smart home technology, one that we advanced in last year's RFID report:

The ideal smart house used to be thought of as one that would take care of everything for you. It would be a “machine for living in,” to borrow modern architect Le Courbusierʼs phrase. In contrast, some of todayʼs best scientists aim to create systems that help residents do things, instead of systems that doing things for them. As professor Stephen Intille has described the MIT House_n project:

Our primary vision is not one where computer technology ubiquitously and proactively manages the details of the home. Technology should require human effort in ways that keep life as mentally and physically challenging as possible as people age.

Work on communications and monitoring systems has taken off thanks, in part, to the discovery of a clear relationship between isolation and depression. Elders are much more likely to stay active when their social lives are active and theyʼre in touch with family and friends. Active elders are healthier elders. Sedentary elders are at greater risk of heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. (Elders often need encouragement to remain active. In Japan and the United States, the elderly watch 5–6 hours of television per day.) Likewise, there is evidence that, by remaining mentally and physically active, elders can fight the onset of Alzheimerʼs. Having a house that does too much to take care of you can be bad for you.

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