ENTER PASSWORD TO CONTINUE

Super ageing society and Japan: Social resources do matter

Japan is facing the super-ageing society. There are five major factors that accelerate this national crisis:

1.  Population ageing;
2. Reduction of the working population;
3. Lowering of social productivity;
4. Increasing burden to young generation;
5. Low birth rate;

They are not independent issues, but dependent to each other. Each of them is cause and effect simultaneously. They have formed a negative feedback and we have been trapped there.

        The current trend to treat the super-ageing society is mainly medical care and nursing care. While it is important to support elderly people in the conventional ways, those approaches cannot be a fundamental or a sufficient solution for the above problems: the medical care and nursing care themselves are one-sided activities, from which the ageing society acquire nothing to solve the above issues. At worst, the society may exhaust its resources and it may rather worsen the current situation.

        To overcome the negative feedback of the super-ageing society, the key is obviously social resources as workforces:  the persistent lack of social resources is embedded in the current crisis. A typical solution would be the acceptance of immigrants: i.e., introducing foreign human resources. However, this issue is controversial because some of EU countries have experienced cultural conflicts between native nationals and immigrants. Some people point out that a discriminatory mentality may be harbored in the acceptance of immigrants as immediate workforces.

        Our approach is not the medical care or the nursing care, much less immigrants as the immediate workforces. We rather regard elderly people as a potentially vital resources.

Remodeling: The biological system has a flexible structure to adapt external/internal stimuli

Unlike artificial ‘machines,’ the biological system has a large flexibility to remodel itself corresponding to external/internal stimuli: e.g., cognitive and physical interventions. Such biological nature is called ‘remodeling.’

The biological system alters itself through development and evolution. The remodeling is the third axis of the biological alternation. One of the most common remodelings is the strengthening of the musculoskeletal system through physical interventions. Meanwhile, remodeling has a two-sided nature: under the microgravity environment (on the orbit of the Earth, for example), it is well known that our musculoskeletal system is quickly degenerated, which is a ‘negative’ effect of the remodeling. Ageing is a kind of remodeling caused by (presumably) endogenous and/or exogenous factors.

        Remodeling occurs also by non-physical interventions: e.g., cognitive interventions. The biological system can be altered even by our ‘mind.’

        The current robotics framework to support the ageing society lacks the biological remodeling view. If a robotics system physically supports a person, the remodeling will immediately occur responding to the physical intervention. At present, it is still open question how the biological system remodels itself in the musculoskeletal system and the central nervous system responding to physical and cognitive interventions, respectively.

        Robotics is definitely one of the key technologies to support Japan’s super-ageing society. Without knowing the dynamics of the biological system, however, we may misuse the robotics framework. As a result, we may consume our resources in vain, or rather in a harmful way for the elderly people.

An application of the robotics framework for remodeling: StillSuit

The above dynamism of the biological system turns to be a new cutting edge of robotics framework. If it is possible to provide controlled cognitive and physical interventions to a user, we will be able to derive ‘preferable’ remodeling in the human mind and body. The robotics framework is quite suitable for this purpose because robotics researchers have been focusing on the technologies to implement physical and cognitive interventions (but in a slightly different context).

        Here we introduce a new kind of soft robotic suit that makes it possible to provide the controlled cognitive and physical interventions: StillSuit. The robotic suit is a new kind of ‘skin’ of a human that interprets external and internal stimuli in real time. The user is cocooned in the suit, but the suit also provides appropriate stimuli to ‘train’ the neuro-musculoskeletal system of the user. Therefore, it is not a mere supportive stool, but rather a mental and physical training suit.

        The robotics suit provides not only physical interventions, but also cognitive interventions. The virtual (or mixed) reality is a key technology here. The cognitive interventions are synchronized with the physical interventions to optimize its effects. The cognitive interventions also have a role to motivate the user to train him/herself.

StillSuit as a life-long data logger

StillSuit is a ‘second’ skin of the user. The user is cocooned in StillSuit virtually all the time. This means that a huge amount of biological data is streamed from the StillSuit sensors to a StillSuit server. StillSuit uses the data to revise its ‘internal’ model. We use the term ‘internal model’ in a specific context here: the ‘internal model’ refers to the neuro-musculoskeletal model of the user.

        The streamed data are persistently stored in a database. The data include:

1. Joint angle
2. Estimated muscle forces
3. Global positions
4. Floor reaction forces
5. External visual stimuli
6. External auditory stimuli
7. NIRS data
8. Heart rate
9.  Electromyogram (EMG)
10. Haptic sensations
11. Vestibular sensations
12. Facial expressions
13. Lines of sight.

Our long-term objectives

As we mentioned above, our approach is not solely the medical care or the nursing care, much less immigrants as the immediate workforces. We rather regard elderly people as a potentially vital resources.

        With controlled physical and cognitive interventions by StillSuit, we will expand the healthspan of general population, especially elderly people. It is almost impossible to expect a drastic recovery of the demographic structure in Japanese society in near future. We need human resources to maintain our society. The expansion of the healthspan of general population is the only way to make a breakthrough in the negative feedback of the super-ageing society. Our StillSuit framework will be a powerful tool for that.

Please feel free to contact us regarding this project.