Technology that has your back

When did you last fall? Hopefully you weren't injured and got straight back on your feet; or maybe you didn't? As we grow older falls become more common and injurious. The good news is that falls are preventable. Exercise to improve strength and balance is effective, but getting people to engage in physical activity can be challenging. We will explore how the introduction of novel technologies (smartphones, wearable and ambient monitors) and exergaming can help prevent falls, and how we use psychology to shape falls prevention interventions.

Have you ever heard someone say their joints hurt more because of the weather? For centuries, people have wondered if, or how, the weather affects their pain. Previous research has never been conclusive as their relationship is surprisingly difficult to study. But today, we have smartphones, enabling us to ask people daily about their pain, whilst collecting the weather data in their area. We will discuss how the nationwide smartphone study Cloudy with a Chance of Pain aims to answer the question about weather and pain, and what other opportunities technology provides for healthcare research.

Advances in technology have enabled devices to monitor ambient noise and to increasing the volume of calls in noisy environments. In a similar vein, it is common place for an individual to manually increase the volume of music above safe hearing levels when the level of background noise increases. This increases the risk of developing hearing problems, which may manifest as a very subtle type of hearing loss. In this talk I explore the potential for using off-the-shelf technology to protect our ears from overexposure and to monitor hearing health.