A mural depicting Samsui women in Chinatown in Singapore.
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From listening devices that detect falls to “patient sitter” systems in hospitals and robots helping with exercise in care homes, Singapore is trying to artificial intelligence to assist manage the health of its elderly population.
By 2030, 1 / 4 of Singaporeans might be 65 or older — in 2010, the figure was one in 10 — and it’s estimated that around 6,000 nurses and care staff will should be hired annually to satisfy Singapore’s health workforce targets.
Technology is far needed to assist fill the care gap in Singapore and elsewhere, in keeping with Chuan De Foo, a research fellow at Singapore’s Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health. Societies all over the world are “dismally unprepared” for an aging population, Foo wrote within the science journal Frontiers last month, and together with his co-authors described AI and other technologies as “pivotal forces with the potential to drive a paradigm shift in healthcare.”
For Foo, artificial intelligence is ready to play a “huge” role in elder care in Singapore, each when it comes to helping clinicians manage non-acute conditions and in overseeing administrative tasks reminiscent of monitoring the provision of hospital beds, he said in an email to CNBC. “Because the elderly in Singapore get more IT savvy, we see them turning to teleconsultations and digital tools that utilize AI technology,” he said.
AI can be getting used to detect diseases earlier, an area of non-public interest for Dr Han Ei Chew, a research fellow on the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore. He said his late mother’s diabetic eye disease might have been diagnosed — and treated — earlier had AI testing methods been available when she was alive, as they’re are actually. “That may have been so useful when the family was going through that journey,” Chew told CNBC by phone.
A giant focus for Singapore is “aging in place,” in keeping with Chew. “We will deploy the AI, but it surely is not about fully replacing human care … it is de facto about assisting the caregivers and helping seniors to remain independent and age in place,” he told CNBC via video call.
Chew said Singapore’s Housing and Development Board is even offering built-in home technology to detect when someone falls down, with an alert sent to a resident’s next of kin or connected to a call center for help.
Some of these monitoring technology should be used rigorously, Chew said, in whatever jurisdiction they’re deployed. “The AI should empower the seniors and never strip them of control. They still have to have the alternative to opt in, set boundaries, and, more importantly, to show it off once they want,” he told CNBC.
A care ‘co-pilot’
It is not only Singapore that’s using AI for elderly care. In america, Sensi.AI is a fast-growing “care co-pilot” that monitors elderly people using audio devices which can be often plugged into three areas of their homes.
Company co-founder and CEO Romi Gubes said the technology can provide caregivers with greater than 100 different insights, alerting them to early signs of urinary tract or respiratory infections, or to falls or cognitive decline. “We’re combining multiple indicators which can be coming from audio,” Gubes told CNBC by video call. “Take into consideration, for instance, respiratory infection. This can [take into account] the cadence of the coughing, the frequency, the sort of coughing, along with … complaints around fever, dizziness,” she said.
When Sensi.AI is installed in a house, it creates a “baseline” over two weeks, noting a spread of “acoustic indicators,” Gubes said, including non-verbal appears like objects being moved, footsteps or snores, which it combines with its team’s clinical knowledge. Once the AI knows the baseline sounds in a house, it may well alert caregivers to any audio anomalies which may suggest a health issue.
Gubes said Sensi is getting used by “tens of 1000’s” of seniors within the U.S. and a spokesperson said the corporate is in discussions a few potential expansion in Asia.
Ageism in AI
The experts CNBC spoke to warned that AI have to be used rigorously in terms of senior health care.
Foo warned that the over-use of AI in consultations might result in “poorer health outcomes” as not all elderly people can use technology, and he warned that it have to be appropriately designed to avoid “perpetuating digital ageism.” Indeed, the World Health Organization cautioned, “The implicit and explicit biases of society, including around age, are sometimes replicated in AI technologies,” and its 2022 policy temporary urged developers to have older people take part in the design of latest technology.
In Singapore, the federal government’s “Motion Plan for Successful Ageing” details its goals, reminiscent of to achieve 550,000 seniors with a health and wellness program and reduce hospital deaths from 61% to 51% between 2023 and 2028.
But Foo said seniors’ opinions needed to be taken under consideration when determining how AI can address their health needs. “Like all latest initiatives, failure might be inevitable if the audience, i.e. the elderly, should not on board. We [need] to listen to their voices and tailor the national health-AI technique to suit their needs while not removing the human element of healthcare. That’s the challenge,” he told CNBC by email.
For Chew, the approach to elder care might want to mix human and machine, describing it as “high tech, but high touch.” “The AI might be best used as an additional set of eyes, ears and the robots [are an] extra set of hands, but not as a alternative for the high touch human care giving,” he said.
