Knowsley IoT to Benefit the Elderly

Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council’s pilots a scheme that aims to increase the number of elderly people taking up assistive tech products.

18:07 30 January 2018

The Local Government Association (LGA) is funding a series of behavioural insight projects to increase the number of elderly that use assistive technology. Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council is one of the seven others in the country that will benefit from the initiative.

 

Project manager Dave Tyrell said: “I think people are sometimes put off because they think of technology as being complicated.

 

“We want to look at what people understand about how it works, with the key words being ‘awareness’ and ‘training’.”

 

To encourage more elderly people to give assistive technology a try, the council will offer them devices that they can use for free for 12 weeks. The hope is that users will become aware of the technology’s benefits and become more open to using it.

 

Tyrell added: “We’re also looking to change the way we present the technology through our social work teams. We have about 250 practitioners and we want them to be able to show people it can be good for them.”

 

“One of our targets is people who might be in great need and can use the technology as a prevention measure. It could be as simple and presentable as an Amazon Echo device.”