According to Statistics Canada's projections, the Canadian population aged 65 and older could represent 25% of Canada's population in 2051. It is also now well recognized that nearly all older adults in Canada would prefer to age in place.
Many older adults live with more than one chronic health condition and need support to manage the activities of daily living. According to the 2017 Canadian Institute for Health Information's (CIHI) Seniors in Transition study (PDF) and the 2020 CIHI analysis of long-term care residents, between 11% and 22% of older adults who had recently transitioned into a nursing home care could have stayed at home with home- or community‑based care if the appropriate supports had been in place. Technology and innovation can help support people's choice to age in place. As Canada prepares for the unique social, economic and medical challenges associated with a rapidly aging population, innovative solutions are needed to support older adults so they can age in place.
Vision
Older Canadians and their caregivers enjoy safe, healthy and socially connected lives within their homes and communities of choice.
Program objectives
The Aging in Place Challenge program was officially launched in April 2021 with a 7-year mandate and an overarching goal of developing technologies and innovations to support older adults who want to remain in their home or community of choice. The program's objectives focus on improving the quality of life of older adults and their personal caregivers through technology and innovation that support safe and healthy aging.
The focus is not only on chronic conditions but also on reducing isolation and maintaining social support networks. The program's research also aims to inform federal and provincial policy decisions by contributing to evidence-based standards and guidelines.
Since its launch, the program has supported several funded collaborative R&D projects, and continues to do so.
Figure 1. Supporting aging in place in Canada - Text version
- Preventing transitions in care through improved health and wellbeing
- Enabling people to continue living well with advances in frailty, ill health and other risk factors for transitions in care
- Creating age-friendly communities and social infrastructure
Areas of focus
Aging in place is a multi-faceted concept and requires a complexity-informed theory of change to develop pathways that will have the greatest impact. The aim of the program is to create a comprehensive system of tech-enabled and tech-augmented supports or interventions and social infrastructure that can be used to support the choice of individuals to age in place.
Our theory of change proposes 3 main approaches to increasing the number of older Canadians living in their homes and communities.
Preventing transitions in care through improved health and wellbeing
Technologies under this focus area would either make it possible for people to access preventative care or support early detection of age-related diseases, including early detection of diseases and conditions associated with aging, and anticipatory changes in the environment surrounding the older adult (such as with assistive technologies or mobility equipment) to prevent accidents, injuries and illnesses that could be a sentinel event.
Desired impact
- Older adults
- Are able to access comprehensive geriatric assessments that follow best practices, regardless of the person's geographical location in relation to the care provider
- Receive support during hospitalizations and are enabled to return home quickly and safely, with iatrogenic harms avoided
- Understand their risk of cognitive impairment and can identify cognitive decline at a preclinical stage so they can access early interventions and disease-modifying treatments
- Older adults and caregivers
- Are able to effectively monitor health and well-being
- Are confident they have an accurate understanding of the risk of falling in the home and have access to mitigation or supports as required
Enabling people to continue living well with advances in frailty, ill health and other risk factors for transitions in care
Technologies under this focus area either reduce the risk of sentinel events (i.e. hospitalizations, falls, caregiver burnout) or facilitate activities of daily living. This includes caregiver supports, adaptive equipment or AgeTech that supports activities of daily living assuming that by altering the environment and increasing the supports available to older adults, it may be possible to delay or prevent a transition in care.
Desired impact
- Older adults
- Are able to engage in rehabilitation activities after an accident or injury
- Receive support for taking their medications as prescribed
- Have access to automotive technology that enables them to continue driving safely and remain independent
- Older adults and caregivers
- Are able to identify changes in health through monitoring and use that information to access help if clinically relevant changes are identified
- Are able to manage activities of daily living and continue to live well with cognitive or physical impairments
- Are confident that any falls in the home will be detected promptly and they will be able to access help quickly
- Caregivers
- Are able to access supports and training to develop the resilience and skills they need to prepare for and navigate the experience of caregiving
- Are confident the older adult they support is taking their medications as prescribed
Creating age-friendly communities and social infrastructure
Technologies under this focus area either adapt the social or physical environment or provide opportunities for meaningful contributions to society despite frailty, cognitive impairment and other known risk factors for transitions in care. This includes policy measures and standard based solutions for transportation, AgeTech development and other broad interventions to ensure social structures and infrastructure support aging in place.
Desired impact
- Older adults
- Can confidently use technologies with less fear of being a victim of cyberattacks, fraud or predatory online activities
- Can use public transit to move around their communities, and between communities, safely and effectively
- Live in dwellings and communities that are safe and promote healthy aging
- Technology developers
- Have access to best practice guidelines and recommendations for developing AgeTech
Together, these 3 pathways create a continuum of interventions that support safe, healthy, socially connected aging. All projects in the program portfolio are expected to be able to demonstrate how their outputs will support one or more of these modalities of impact.
Healthy aging communities living labs
The Aging in Place Challenge program is developing a living labs initiative to help address the well-known AgeTech adoption challenge and fulfill the program's vision.
Figure 2. Healthy aging community living labs - Text version
The healthy aging community living labs initiative funded and run by the NRC's Aging in Place Challenge program focuses on collaboration, co-creation and impact. The image shows the different living lab partners working together towards impact including:
- The NRC
- Experts by experience
- Research partner
- Industry
- Local government
- Health and social care
The objective of the initiative is to collaborate, co-develop and evaluate AgeTech innovations and solutions for aging in place.
The objective of the initiative is to support the program in meeting its challenge statement through a methodology of innovation that embraces a collaborative approach where necessary groups of complementary organizations work together to co-develop and evaluate AgeTech.
In order to ensure that technologies and innovations developed under and supported by the program have impact and get into the hands of older adults and their caregivers and health and social care systems in Canada, the initiative supports these elements:
- Meaningful involvement of experts by experience from the beginning stages and throughout the innovation process
- Community-based collaborations with NRC scientists, experts by experience, industry, academia, health and social care organizations, and government
- A rigorous approach to AgeTech design and evaluation
- Connections across Canada's AgeTech innovation continuum
This initiative is expected to act as a catalyst in Canada's AgeTech innovation-to-adoption timeline, creating impact-oriented, community-validated AgeTech solutions for aging in place.