Disabled Living: Real Time Assessment Tool for Assistive Technology
Delivering a Mobile Occupational Therapy Assessment so that the right equipment can be provided to prevent falls and improve functional ability, helping to achieve a better quality of life and wellbeing as people age.
About the project
The Real Time Assessment Tool for Assistive Technology has been developed by Disabled Living, a Charity that provides support, advice, and information about assistive technology to help disabled adults, children, and older people to achieve independent living. This support ensures that people can make safe and economically sound choices about the support that they can receive, promotes functional ability that enables wellbeing in older age as well as reducing hospital admissions to A & E through falls.
Through their feasibility project Disabled Living have developed a new way of undertaking assessments using video conferencing methods that has enabled one to one consultation with Occupational Therapists (OT’s) so that they can provide an on-line assessment for suitable equipment.
Through the Real Time Assessment Tool, the OT can view all rooms in the house, so any risks can be captured (such as fall risks) and interventions can be put in place to ensure that the client is safe. Normally, the assessments would be completed by an OT visiting the individual within their homes to deliver and compile the assessment on paper which must then be processed manually to determine subsequent actions and follow up, a process that could take up to six months to complete.
Disabled Living have now developed a prototype of the Tool which has been tested by Occupational Therapists (OT), providing a platform to ensure that the right equipment is provided to the patient, in a timely manner that reduces the need for further health and social care interventions and ultimately helps people maintain their health as they age.
In this next step, they would like to carry out a pilot that integrates the Tool into GP Services to provide a Mobile Occupational Therapy Assessment, for those at risk of poor mobility, so that the right equipment can be purchased for Mobility Stores – preventing falls and improving the functional ability of the patient to achieve a better quality of life and therefore enabling better wellbeing as they age.