China News Service, Guangzhou, August 22 (Reporter Cai Minjie) At the 10th Guangzhou Elderly Expo, Zhu Guodong, deputy director of the Guangzhou Nursing Home, introduced a special "laboratory" - it is not in an office building or an industrial park, but is built directly in the Guangzhou Nursing Home with more than 4,000 elderly residents.
As the first public laboratory for the silver economy in the country to be implemented in a nursing home, it is using real elderly care scenarios as a "testing ground" to solve the industry pain points of "difficulty matching" between aging-friendly products and the real needs of the elderly, and promote the silver economy from "concept" to "implementation".
"In the past, many aging-friendly products were made by 'sitting in the office and thinking about the needs.' The products were either not used by the elderly or could not be used at all." Zhu Guodong said that relying on more than 4,000 elderly residents and thousands of front-line caregivers in Guangzhou's nursing homes, research and development here is no longer just a matter of paper. From the strenuous moment when the elderly get dressed in the morning, to the subtle movements of eating and swallowing, to every attempt at rehabilitation training, these vivid details have become a "gold mine" for product iteration; every practical difficulty encountered by caregivers when turning over and assisting in bathing has been directly transformed into a key research topic for the company.
At present, the laboratory has integrated the resources of 34 leading enterprises, universities and scientific research institutes, serving more than 100 units across the country, and established an innovative consortium covering universities, scientific research institutes, testing institutions, and high-tech enterprises to open up the entire chain of "research and development-verification-testing-transformation".
Since its operation, the laboratory has handed over a report card: established the top ten Guangzhou aging and frailty health management cohorts, created more than 200 subdivided real scenarios, focused on building two typical application scenarios of emotional interaction and brain-computer interface + elderly care, developed two vertebral models, and built an ecological data platform for the health care industry.
Among them, 7 application scenarios were included in the Ministry of Civil Affairs’ elderly care technology service practice and innovation cases, and the intelligent elderly care service robot project was selected as the “Intelligent Elderly Care Service Robot Paired Research and Scenario Application Pilot Project” of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Ministry of Civil Affairs.
In the brain-computer interface + elderly care scenario, the application of intelligent brain-controlled walking assistance and rehabilitation equipment is particularly typical. This "what you think is what you get" device captures the movement intentions or cognitive status of disabled or semi-disabled elders through non-invasive brain electroencephalography, and converts them into device control instructions, allowing the elders to transform from being "passively cared for" to "acting autonomously". The data generated by the operation of the equipment is synchronously transmitted back to the laboratory data center, which continuously feeds back the model training and promotes the advancement of artificial intelligence from "perception" to "understanding".
The iteration of lower limb exoskeleton walking rehabilitation equipment is a typical example. Initially, the equipment had problems such as being complicated to wear, high operating threshold, and poor adaptability. After rehabilitation therapists reported various difficulties such as differences in bone density and muscle strength among the elderly, the company optimized the wearing structure and operating procedures, greatly improving the efficiency of equipment use and the cooperation of the elderly, and truly solving the pain points of rehabilitation care for the disabled elderly. At present, the laboratory has built five major verification scenarios, including smart home and early dementia screening, and the first batch of 16 aging products have completed the application and entered the verification stage.
The person in charge of the Guangzhou Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau stated that they will rely on core platforms such as the Silver Economy Public Laboratory, the Innovation Consortium, and the Smart Healthcare (Age-friendly) Equipment Innovation Design Competition to accelerate the in-depth integration of government, industry, academia, and research, and promote more "Guangzhou R&D, Guangzhou Verification, and Guangzhou Transformation" elderly-friendly products out of the agency's "test field" so that the innovation results of Silver Hair technology can truly benefit every elderly person.
