In a sprawling exhibit at the conference in a Washington hotel Monday, the group displayed 50 prototypes and early-stage products -- from a robotic assistant called ``Nursebot'' to an interactive, Web-enabled medicine cabinet.
Some of the technology is expensive. It costs about $4,500 to outfit a home with wireless sensors in one Intel project: A personal computer and the Internet are used to allow doctors and relatives to check on a range of activities by a senior living alone. It tracks such things as whether medications have been taken to how many steps the person has walked since waking up, said Eric Dishman, chair of the Center for Aging Services Technology.
Prices should come down significantly in the future, he said, and those costs would be weighed against the sky-high price of medical care.
``If you look at a condition like Alzheimer's, keeping somebody in their own home for one to three days could pay for the cost of the technology,'' said Dishman, who also heads Intel's Health Research and Innovation Group.
Barrett has made health research a priority at the company, saying it fits with Intel's strategy of identifying new ways to use technology.
Barrett is a senior citizen himself, moving from chief executive officer to board chairman earlier this year because of a company policy requiring CEOs to give up their post at 65. But he said his own age has nothing to do with his recent work on technology for the aging, although he joked to the conference's opening session that he was the oldest of the six keynote speakers. Barrett said he was motivated by experience dealing with the medical needs of an older family member.
As the elderly demographic continues to increase, there will be manpower, and financial pressures to care through these patients through technology. I'm not sure if the nursebot concept will take off though.
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