The VIVO Hub for Enhanced Independent Living

Over 6.7 million people in the UK have age-related or disability-related mobility issues, leading to loss of independence and reliance on severely stretched health and care services. This number is growing as the mean age of the population increases. The UK faces a crisis of care where older people and people with disabilities who lose independence may not, for the first time since the inception of the welfare state, have the care they need. This will have a major negative impact on the welfare of citizens and the UK economy. The practical solution to this urgent human health and care need is through healthcare technologies that directly address the mobility and independence needs of this large population precisely where it is needed – on their bodies, in their homes and in the community and environments where they live and socialise. The VIVO Hub for Enhanced Independent Living will deliver a new world class research and translation capability for the study, maintenance and restoration of mobility and independence in older people and people with disabilities. It will develop the critically needed technology infrastructure across smart materials and actuation, control and bio interfacing, digital health monitoring and machine learning, and will co-develop, with users and stakeholders, in-home, on-body and away-from-home digital-physical assistance devices to enhance and restore independence, close the loop between digital monitoring and personalised intervention, reduce healthcare costs, and improve quality of life. We address the four challenges of: 1. Fall prevention, 2. Independent dressing, 3. Mobility in the home, 4. Supporting activity out of the home, and define core aims and objectives to deliver the NHS’s “miracle cure” of healthy activity, full independence and participation: Objective 1. Building the VIVO inclusive innovation Hub: Through an integrated and inclusive programme of training, co-design, research, development, PPIE, partnership and translation, community building and wide engagement, the VIVO Hub will be the focus for world-leading research and partnership for digital-physical enhanced independent living. Objective 2. Technologies to combat falls: The Hub will develop fundamental technologies to help prevent falls through accelerated development of wearable devices for to combat orthostatic hypotension, and explore other physiological causes of falls. Objective 3. Easy-on and easy-off assistive clothing: To restore the essential ability to self-dress, the Hub will develop foundational technologies for robotic clothing that “puts itself on” and “takes itself off”, and is comfortable, washable and discrete. Objective 4: Digitally supported robotic assistance for mobility in the home: The Hub will develop and couple new help-to-move wearable soft robotic assistance with in-house digital monitoring systems to support key activities including sit-to-stand, stair climbing, safe standing and stable walking. Objective 5: Enabling full independence out of the home: To restore full, safe and comfortable independence, the Hub will extend comfortable in-home help-to-move systems to develop home-to-roam technologies. These will include lightweight on-body energy storage and power delivery systems, untethered adaptive control, and sensory-enhancing haptics. Objective 6: Technology evaluation from lab to home: The VIVO Hub will innovate and evaluate new assistive technologies through a pipeline of co-development and testing in real-world environments, testing with volunteers in the Living Lab of the Bristol Robotics Laboratory, in the SPHERE smart house, and in homes and care homes. This rich test bed will provide evidence needed to accelerate transition through clinical trials to NHS care systems within 10 years.