Researchers launch smartphone platform to monitor senior safety

Sanjay Ranka, Ph.D., and Todd Manini, Ph.D., are on a mission to bring health care for seniors into the smartphone age.

When it comes to caring for our aging loved ones, we fret about mobility, cognition, medications and activity levels. Significant help often seems limited to trips to the doctor’s office or the hospital.

Ranka, a professor in the University of Florida’s Department of Computer & Information Science & Engineering, or CISE, is leading a project that uses technology to gather multi-faceted and useful wellness data, ultimately to improve the quality of life for elderly citizens and their caregivers.  

“Health care,” he said, “should happen outside of the hospital.”  

Ranka is part of G-CARE, or Gerontology Centers united to Aid Remote Research in Elders, a project funded by the National Institute on Aging, which is part of the National Institutes of Health. Also leading the project is Todd Manini, Ph.D., a professor in the College of Medicine’s Department of Health Outcomes & Biomedical Informatics.  

G-CARE will develop a next-generation smartphone platform that lets researchers study older adults remotely, continuously and in the context of their everyday lives. The platform will monitor mobility, cognition, medications, symptoms, daily activities and other health information while supporting wearables, GPS and cognitive assessments.  

The project’s guiding principle is to employ technology to gather detailed wellness data to improve quality of life. 

Ranka came to this project partly out of concern for his own aging parents, but also out of frustration with the state of medical technology. 

“Years ago, we were looking at data from devices that were attached to patients’ hips,” he said. “Some of the devices would get lost, some would end up in the bathtub and get destroyed. As smartwatches came on the scene, we wondered if we could collect the same kind of data, not from the hip, but from the hand. So, more data and more interactivity. Because you can use the watch to reach out to the patient and say, ‘Hey, are you okay?’ in case intervention is required.” 

Manini, who also serves as acting director of the UF Institute on Aging, was similarly motivated. 

“The fundamental challenge in aging research and clinical care of older adults is that many of the outcomes that matter most — mobility, physical function, symptoms and the ability to live independently — are usually not measured clinically or done during brief and infrequent visits,” Manini said. “We simply are not getting a holistic view of health in late life.” 

G-CARE, Manini added, will address this by creating a reusable research infrastructure that uses familiar technologies such as smartphones and wearable sensors to repeatedly collect meaningful information remotely. 

The project aims to leverage the ubiquitous smartphone as the data-processing hub with the smartwatch acting as a data-collection device. Using the onboard accelerometer as a sensor, for example, the smartphone could run a simple machine learning model to sense falls, gait problems or even limps. The information could be transmitted to the patient, who would learn they are at risk of falling, and to the patient’s healthcare provider.  

Ranka and his collaborators hope to create a scalable research infrastructure that can change how aging is studied, helping researchers develop and evaluate ways to predict important health events, including falls, emergency department visits and hospitalizations, while reducing the burden of research participation for older adults. 

Ranka relishes these practical challenges, finding real solutions to thorny problems. 

“I want to do theoretical research for practical applications," he said. “Most of my work today is very application-oriented, and hopefully to some extent it has the potential to have an impact on the real world.” 

The work is oriented around what UF’s Institute on Aging calls “the five Ms of geriatrics”: mobility, medications, mind, what matters most and multi-complexity. These allow researchers to collect information on physical function, cognition, symptoms, medications, daily activities and health events through a single, user-friendly application.  

“Multi-complexity is an aging term,” Ranka said. “At a very high level, aging can involve several interacting health conditions. As we age, multiple things can go wrong. Most specialists are only looking at one complexity at a time, but sometimes a team is needed. This platform will allow us to study multiple things simultaneously and at a very high level.” 

The project’s potential impact extends beyond convenience.  

More frequent, real-world measurements could help clinicians and researchers identify changes in health and function earlier, understand individual patterns that conventional assessments may miss and evaluate just-in-time interventions with greater precision. Remote participation also lowers traditional obstacles with clinical research such as travel and reaching those who are underserved. As such, accessibility, usability, privacy and equity are central to the platform’s development. 

G-CARE is a multi-site collaboration involving UF, the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Emory University. The project promises to bring together experts in geriatrics, digital health, engineering, cognitive science and clinical research from all three institutions.