Our May 22 speaker was Dr. Kenneth Pickar from Caltech, where he is Visiting Professor of Mechanical and Medical Engineering. Dr. Pickar spoke on the topic of "Product Design for the Aging."
Following is our stalwart note-taker's report on the meeting:
Our speaker explained that his "mission" is to try and remedy the annoyances that older adults encounter in their daily lives. In identifying concerns to address, he asks, "What are the things really annoying?" Most of his work is in mechanical engineering. He enjoys product design that can affect all people in the world, and wants to change and improve lives. He hopes in the process to create aesthetically pleasing objects. The ultimate human objective is to help others: a complex challenge.
Dr. Pickar spoke at length about two of the courses that he teaches at CalTech:
- Design for Freedom from Disabilities
- The purpose of this course is to help people with disabilities become independent and to find projects that are useful daily for the caregiver. The class works in tandem with the Rancho Los Amigos Rehabilitation Center to bring prototypes to a useful stage and make these distributable.
- Dr. Pickar listed some of the rehabilitation engineering products that his students have worked on: amputee sleeve (made through 3-D printing); door opener; pressure ulcer prevention system (special cushion, with app on cell phone); hemiplegic wheelchair and its 'charger'; video games for people whose hands do not work well any more; folding board for transfer from wheelchair to toilet, for instance; special set of brakes for wheelchair; hybrid power assist; a very slim, light walker; a modified cane.
- Product Design for the Developing World
- Dr. Pickar took the class to Guatemala so they could work with people from a different culture. He described a project they developed there to make wheelchairs from bicycles.
Dr. Pickar also teaches Caltech classes on entrepreneurship, and on the management of technology.
In the question-and-answer period following the presentation, Dr. Pickar asked attendees what problems they'd like to see addressed. He noted that fall prevention is a particular interest, as 424,000 people globally die from falls each year. An audience member cited the issue of falls in nursing homes, and that while helmets could be used as protection, vanity is an obstacle.
He is interested in problems around aging, citing a statistic that soon 34% of the US population will be over the age of 65. He commented that devices are, unfortunately, not always easy to use. As people's conditions change, there need to be adaptations made, for instance cushioning in wheelchairs.
Comments