A third of people living in residential aged care report feeling socially isolated, but innovative technology could be one of the keys to reversing this trend.
Australia is experiencing a loneliness epidemic and older people are among the worst affected, with a third of people living inEvonne Miller, a professor of design psychology at QUT in Brisbane, has undertaken research into how activities such as virtual and augmented reality can help provide"The reality is, for too many people when they enter aged care, it can be too difficult to leave," Professor Miller says.
"One of the challenges we had was too many aged care facilities are not designed with the future in mind, so things like accessing wi-fi — we tried to Chromecast inside and we couldn't do that."It's a challenge Meanjin/Brisbane man Che Turner hopes to overcome with a new social enterprise that uses immersive reality to transport participants to exotic locations including Central Australia and the French Alps — from the comfort of an air-conditioned van.
"I used to work next to their office in Brisbane when I was with another aged care provider and I'd walk past every day on my lunch break and think 'what a brilliant idea'. The footage of the journeys — which include the English countryside and the Ghan, in Central Australia — was submitted by members of online train forums.
"This is a passion project and I work Monday to Friday so we only can do it on weekends at the moment, but the response has been incredible; most of the comments are people didn't expect this, they didn't think it was possible.