Building a national technology and innovation infrastructure for an aging society

This thesis focuses on the potential of strategic technology innovation and implementation in sustaining an aging society, and examines the need for a comprehensive national technology and innovation infrastructure in the U.S., capable of supporting the development and use of technologies by the aging population and their caregivers. The pervasiveness of population aging makes it a primary concern for nations around the world today. As the inadequacies of existing resources become apparent, policy makers .are now turning to technology and innovation to cope with the changing demographics. 'Technological innovations to accommodate the elderly have existed since centuries ago, and they been useful in extending the human capability beyond perceived limitations of aging. However, new technologies developed with the same objectives are not widely adopted and accepted by the aging population today. The thesis is divided into two complementary sections.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Technology and Policy Program.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Lau, Jasmin

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Joseph F. Coughlin.

• Technology and Policy Program.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/38566

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/38566