In an article for The Atlantic, Joe Coughlin, director of the AgeLab, writes that tech companies often mistakenly view older adults “as a singular, homogenous population that depends on the largesse of others to survive because it can’t provide for itself.” If companies treated older adults like they treat other consumers, they could live not only longer lives, but better lives, suggests Coughlin.
Joe Coughlin, director of the AgeLab, writes about the need to rethink how people live as they age. “An older America done right will improve quality of life across the board. After all, if we’re lucky, the future of old age is the future for everyone,” said Coughlin in Time magazine.
In a WBUR segment about how technology is increasingly being used to assist seniors and caregivers, Rachel Zimmerman highlights Rendever, an MIT spinout, and speaks with Prof. Paul Osterman, Prof. Dina Katabi and Dr. Joseph Coughlin about their work. Zimmerman explains that Coughlin believes “a mix of smart devices and other personal services,” will help people age well.
In an article for Forbes, Champaign Williams highlights a new app developed by two MIT graduates that, “connects millennials and college students in search of temporary housing with baby boomers who have excess space and could use the extra cash.”
MIT alumni Noelle Marcus and Rachel Goor have created a housing app that matches graduate students looking for housing with homeowners looking for assistance with household chores, writes Colleen Flaherty for Inside Higher Ed. Marcus explains that the app could help the “aging population in the U.S. stay in their homes.”
In an article for The New York Times, Prof. Jonathan Gruber writes that proposed cuts to Medicaid will impact a large number of Americans, as the program provides financial resources for elderly and disabled adults. “Nearly two-thirds of [Medicaid] spending is focused on older and disabled adults — primarily through spending on long-term care services such as nursing homes.”
Boston Magazine reporter Jamie Ducharme writes that CSAIL researchers have developed a device that can measure walking speed using wireless signals. The device can “also measure stride length, which may come in handy when studying conditions that are characterized by small steps, such as Parkinson’s disease.”
In an article for The New York Times, Constance Gustke speaks with Joseph Coughlin, head of the AgeLab, about the need for new technologies for seniors that, as he explains, “help us learn and expand our horizons.” Gustke also spotlights the work of Rendever, an MIT spinout that uses virtual reality as a means to enhance the lives of seniors.
Baby Boomers are counting on technology to make aging easier, writes Robert Weisman for The Boston Globe. Prof. Joe Coughlin’s work at the AgeLab, and companies by Prof. Bob Langer and Prof. Leonard Guarente, are cited for their attempts to do just that.
MIT AgeLab Director, Joseph Coughlin speaks with Boston Globe writer Elizabeth Gehrman about the future of senior living homes. “What you’re watching in the marketing is a living experiment of trying to create a vision of how we’ll live in our older age,” says Coughlin.
Joseph Coughlin, director of MIT’s Age Lab, writes for The Wall Street Journal about some innovations that could revolutionize retirement. “The next-generation retiree will have an unprecedented array of technologies and tech-enabled services to invent a new future for working part time, remaining social, having fun, living at home, staying healthy and arranging care,” Coughlin explains.
Joseph Coughlin, director of MIT’s AgeLab, speaks with Cardiff Garcia of the Financial Times about how to make aging easier. Coughlin says that we need “the imagination, the creativity and the will to invent a new vision to live longer and better.”
Writing for the Huffington Post, Dr. Sandra Bond Chapman highlights an MIT study that shows different mental processes peak at different ages. The study “examined a number of different brain processes that make up intelligence, rather than viewing intelligence as a single measure as has traditionally been done.”
MIT researchers have found that different parts of the human brain work best at different ages, reports Susan Pinker for The Wall Street Journal. “Some abilities mature early, such as how fast we recall names and faces. Others, like vocabulary and background knowledge, are late bloomers,” Pinker explains.
Joseph Coughlin, director of the MIT AgeLab, writes for the Huffington Post about aging. Coughlin argues that, “it may not be so bad to be old after all,” citing new research showing that “older Americans, those age 55 and older, have a higher state of well-being than the younger population.”