The Oregon Center for Aging and Technology (ORCATECH) was formally established in 2004 through an National Institute on Aging Roybal Center grant and has rapidly grown (see Milestones below). ORCATECH is dedicated to:
- Supporting a unique infrastructure that facilitates the process of developing and translating basic social, behavioral and biological knowledge about aging independently using state of the art technology and engineering;
- Advancing the use-inspired ORCATECH Living Laboratory model for technology-based health monitoring and support of independent aging, utilizing individual residences and communities with advances in ubiquitous computing and including new constituencies focusing on under-served populations;
- Accelerating the process of development, translation and dissemination of knowledge gained in the living laboratory through innovative public-private partnerships, cross-disciplinary collaborations and recruitment of new talent into the field; and
- Establishing the evidence-base that confirms what works (or not).
The Center fosters and stimulates translational innovation through a number of mechanisms including its multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional Council composed of academic, community and industry leaders, building new national and international research collaborations, providing support to existing research studies, as well as developmental support through the ORCATECH Living Laboratory. The Living Laboratory model consists of a network volunteers who allow us into their homes on a continuous basis with a suite of assessment technologies that allow for rapid testing of additional new technologies or methodologies in situ. Prospectively designed for unobtrusive monitoring of activity with leading-edge technology this Laboratory provides for an ecologically valid environment not otherwise available.
Subsequent pages of this website describe the organization, its people, their publications and research in greater detail.
| ORCATECH Milestones |
| 2004 |
| OHSU awarded $1.5M Roybal Center grant creating ORCATECH organizational infrastructure, key pilot funds |
| ORCATECH Council established with 20 member |
| National Institute of Standards and Technology awards ORCATECH partner Spry Learning $1M to investigate using computer games to infer cognitive function. Spry games become part of OLL |
| 2005 |
| ORCATECH established as an independent transdisciplinary center at OHSU |
| ORCATECH presents at White House Conference on Aging |
| OHSU ORCATECH awarded $7M NIH Bioengineering Research Partnership grant to study scalable technology to detect early cognitive decline in community dwelling seniors |
| 2006 |
| ORCATECH partners with NIA Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study group and is awarded $1.3M over six years, providing the home-based technologies to be used in developing new clinical trials paradigms |
| 2007 |
| Intel establishes the Behavioral Assessment and Intervention Commons, awarding ORCATECH $3M over 3 years to study product development for behavioral marker technologies to detect health change |
| ORCATECH forms an international (US, EU, Japan) coalition with 7 University and Industrial partners receiving funding for a European Union 7th Framework proposal focused on a Common Awareness and Knowledge Platform for Studying and Enabling Independent Living (CAPSIL) |
| OHSU signs MOU with Pacific Retirement Services for ORCATECH research studies to be conducted at new CCRC, Mirabella Portland, on the Portland south waterfront to open in 2010 |
| 2008 |
| ORCATECH Council grows to over 50 members |
| National Academy of Science Keck Futures Initiative grant awarded to develop Technology-enhanced Interventions for Distance Caregiving of Older Adults: An Interdisciplinary Approach brings together an interdisciplinary research team from five universities across the country using the OLL model |
| Stirling-Oregon-Northern Ireland Cognitive Stimulation collaboration formed among Northern Ireland, Oregon and Scotland to develop a, extensible software system for cognitively stimulating middle aged individuals, monitoring for dementia and cognitive decline, and testing clinical utility in a large longitudinally followed cohort |