Mural who shows Samsui women in Chinese district in Singapore.
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From listening to the device that detects the fall “Page“Hospital systems and Robots that help in exercise Singapore’s care homes seek artificial intelligence to help manage the health of its older population.
To 2030. A quarter of the Singaporean will be 65 or older – In 2010, the figure was one of the 10 – and it is estimated that about 6,000 nurses and care care will have to be engaged annually to meet Singapore’s healthcare work goals.
Technology is much needed to help fill the care of care in Singapore and elsewhere, according to Chuan de Foo, a scientific associate at the Singapore School of the Swee Hock School of Public Health. Societies around the world are “Discomfort clumsy“For the aging of the population, Foo wrote in Frontience Science Journal last month, and with his co -authors he described AI and other technologies as” key forces with the potential to stimulate health care paradigm. “
For FOO, artificial intelligence is set up to play a “huge” role in the care of the elderly in Singapore, both in terms of helping clinics to manage non-acute conditions and in the supervision of administrative tasks, such as monitoring the availability of hospital beds, he said in the CNBC email. “As the older ones in Singapore become more smart, we see them turn to teleconultures and digital tools that use AI technology,” he said.
AI is also used to detect the disease earlier, an area of personal interest in Dr. Han Ei Chew, a scientific associate at the Lee Kuan Yew Public Policy School in Singapore. He said that the diabetes of the late mother could diagnose – and to treat – the methods of testing AI examination were available earlier when she was alive, as they are now. “That would be so useful when the family goes through that trip,” Chew told CNBC on the phone.
The big focus for Singapore is “aging in place,” Chew said. “We can implement AI, but it’s not a completely replacement of people’s care … It’s actually a help nursers and help the elderly to stay independent and to place,” he told CNBC through video calls.
Chew said the Singapore Committee on Housing and Development even offers built -in home technology Discover when someone falls Down, with a warning sent to a resident deadline or related to the assistance center for help.
These types of monitoring technology must be carefully used, Chew said in any jurisdiction they implemented. “Ai should strengthen the seniors and not remove them over control. They still need to have a choice to decide, set the boundaries and, more importantly, exclude it when they want,” he told CNBC.
‘Ko-pilot’ care
Not just a Singapore who looks at the AI for older care. In the United States of Sensi.AI, a quickly growing “care pilot” is monitored by the elderly using audio devices that are usually involved in three areas of their homes.
The co -founder of the company and executive director Roma Gubes said that technology can provide carers with more than 100 different insights, warning them of the wound signs of the urinary tract or respiratory infections, or to a fall or cognitive decline. “We combine more indicators that come from sound,” Gubs told CNBC video call. “Think, for example, a respiratory infection. This will [take into account] Cadence cough, frequency, type of cough, along with … complaints around fever, dizziness, “she said.
When Sensi.i is installed in the house, it creates a “basic” for two weeks, noticing a series of “acoustic indicators,” said Gubes, including non -verbal sounds such as moved objects, feet or bundles, which combines with the clinical knowledge of his team. Once Ai knows that the basic sounds in the home can be alerted to carers of any audio anomalies that could suggest a health problem.
Gubes said that Sensi used the “tens of thousands of” the elderly in the US, and a spokesman said the company was in discussion of potential spread in Asia.
Ageism in AI
CNBC experts spoke with a warning that AI must be carefully used when it comes to older health care.
Foo warned that excessive use of AI in counseling can lead to “worse health outcomes” because not all elderly people can use technology, and he warned that he must be properly designed to avoid “maintaining a digital ageism”. Indeed, the World Health Organization warned“Implicit and explicit bias of society, including about age, are often replicated in AI technologies” and its 2022 Short He urged developers that older people participate in the design of new technology.
In Singapore, the government “Action Plan for successful aging“Details of his goals, such as 550,000 seniors with a health and wellness program and a decrease in the hospital in hospital from 61% to 51% between 2023 and 2028.
But Foo said that seniors’ opinions should be taken into account when determining how AI can solve their health needs. “Like all new initiatives, failure will be inevitable if the target audience, ie older, are not on board. [need] Hear their voices and adjust the national health strategy to fit their needs without removing the human element of health care. It’s a challenge, “he told CNBC E -today.
For Chew, the approach to caring for the elderly will have to connect people and a machine, describing it as “high technology but high touch.” “Ai is probably best used as an additional set of eyes, ears and robots [are an] An additional set of hands, but not as a replacement for giving human care with high touch, “he said.
