Interdisciplinary Community Engagement Programme

This course introduces students to various healthcare technologies that alleviate the burden associated with ageing, with a focus on designing and developing appropriate technological innovations for the silver economy. The course covers topics on the biology of ageing, technologies in assisted living, caregiving, and compensating declining physical abilities, as well as digital health in ageing. This course also includes a service-learning project where students partner with various social service agencies to identify and address existing gaps through a hands-on design project to develop a gerontechnological innovation prototype.  

The course broadly covers the following topics: 

• Introduction to Gerontechnology 
• Interacting with Older Adults 
• Biology of Ageing 
• Psychosocial Challenges with Ageing 
• Geriatric Syndromes of Ageing 
• Gerontechnology Design 
• Technology in Caregiving 
• Case Study in Gerontechnology Innovation 

Learning Outcomes

• Interact effectively with older adults
• Describe the biological processes behind ageing 
• Describe the psychosocial aspects and common geriatric syndromes associated with ageing
• Identify unmet needs in assisted living and caregiving amongst older adults
• Determine the technical specifications for a solution to the unmet needs
• Develop a technological innovation prototype
• Acquire experience in managing a team-based engineering project and working with a real client
• Discuss the issues and challenges associated with technology adoption amongst the elderly

This course is also part of the bGood programme, where you have opportunities to continue working on your project with a generous budget after the course, towards community deployment at scale while getting paid at the same time. For more information, please email biekahj@nus.edu.sg.