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  • The Quality Improvement Program for Missouri's Long - Term Care Facilities (QIPMO) is committed to Missouri's Elderly.

  • The "Aging-in-place" model allows older adults to receive health care in their preferred place of living, eliminating the need for a more restricted living space, such as a nursing home.

  • TigerPlace is a specially designed elder housing project initiated by the MU Sinclair School of Nursing, working to provide elders a better quality of life.

Technology and Aging

To help reach the goals of the AIP program, TigerPlace (named after the University of Missouri mascot, the tiger) was designed by MU faculty working with the Americare Corporation. TigerPlace is a specially-designed, elder housing project that was initiated by the MU Sinclair School of Nursing. It is built to nursing home standards, but not the typical configuration; it has 54 private apartments with fully accessible bathrooms, kitchens, and screened porches. A major objective was to design and implement exciting research, education, and practice opportunities at TigerPlace while integrating TigerPlace into the MU campus and the Columbia community. The links with MU are important as seniors become involved in the student learning projects and take advantage of classes and cultural activities of their interest at MU. The key research in progress is the development and testing of technology to enhance aging in place that will someday be used in homes of elders throughout the country.

Technology and Aging Articles

CIN: Computer, Informatics, Nursing
- Year Published: 2013

Passive sensor networks were deployed in independent living apartments to monitor older adults in their home environments to detect signs of impending illness and alert clinicians so they can intervene and prevent or delay significant changes in health or functional status. A retrospective qualitative analysis was undertaken to refine health alerts to improve clinical releva...

IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in BioMedicine
- Year Published: 2013

In this paper, we propose a webcam-based system for in-home gait assessment of older adults. A methodology has been developed to extract gait parameters including walking speed, step time and step length from a three-dimensional voxel reconstruction, which is built from two calibrated webcam views. The gait parameters are validated with a GAITRite mat and a Vicon motion capt...

Journal of the American Medical Directors Association
- Year Published: 2013

As people age, they want to remain as active and independent as possible for as long as possible. They want to age at home, not in institutions like nursing homes (Marek & Rantz, 2000). According to a 2010 AARP survey, 88 percent of people over age 65 want to stay in their residence for as long as possible (AARP, 2010). Technology has the potential to help people rema...

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Proceedings from the 10th Annual International Conference on Smart Homes and Health Telematics
- Year Published: 2012

We present an example of unobtrusive, continuous monitoring in the
home for the purpose of assessing early health changes. Sensors embedded in
the environment capture activity patterns. Changes in the activity patterns are
detected as potential signs of changing health. A simple alert algorithm has
been implemented to generate health alerts to clinici...

Proceedings of the International Society for Gerontechnology and International Symposium for Automation and Robotics in Construction Conference
- Year Published: 2012

The purpose of the study is to investigate whether motion density maps based on passive infrared (PIR) motion sensors and the dis-similarity measure of the density maps, along with relative energy expenditure estimates derived from motion density are sensitive enough to detect changes in mental health over time.

Journal of Gerontological Nursing
- Year Published: 2012

Our team has developed a technological innovation that detects changes in health
status that indicate impending acute illness or exacerbation of chronic illness before usual assessment methods or self-reports of illness. We successfully used this information in a 1-year prospective study to alert health care providers so they could readily assess the situation and init...

All Research Grants

List all Research & Projects Grants
Principal Investigator:  Marilyn Rantz
Dates of Project Period: 1/1/03-9/30/06
Total Amount: $370,000
Summary: In this project, we will build and test a prototype Health Alert System that includes non-wearable motion and bed sensors,...
Principal Investigator:  Marge Skubic
Dates of Project Period: 7/1/12-6/30/13
Total Amount: $299,654