Ashley De Neef: Hello and welcome to the Aged Care Enrichment or ACE podcast brought to you by SilVR Adventures. Every fortnight, we invite aged care industry experts, thought leaders and passionate individuals to share their knowledge and experience with us as we examine ways to improve the quality of care and the quality of life for seniors. I am your host, Ashley De Neef. And our guest today is Julianne Parkinson. Julianne is the CEO of the Global Centre for Modern Ageing, a not-for-profit that helps organizations and individuals devise products and services that allow older people to live and age well. Through their life lab, they partner with volunteers in simulated environments to help discover what things make a difference to the lives of elderly Australians. Julianne comes to this interview armed with fresh research about how older Australians are adapting to the COVID pandemic, and we go in depth on some ways to smooth the transitions between care in the home and life in aged care facilities. There is a lot covered here. So, I hope you enjoy this conversation with Julianne Parkinson. All right, thank you so much for joining us Julianne on the podcast.
Julianne Parkinson: It is a pleasure to be here, Ashley. Thank you.
Ashley: Can we start with a bit of background about yourself?
Julianne: Yes, certainly. I have lived all over Australia, I raised a family,
and in my professional life, I have always been interested in how humans can be
growing themselves as individuals, also how we can grow our economies and
societies at the same time. While I have been living here in South Australia,
we have been seeing this emergence of the importance of the ageing phenomenon,
and what it meant to society here in Australia and overseas, and also what it
could mean to business and governments if we were to understand people as we
age and how we can make a difference by sharing that evidence-based
understanding in ways that bring innovation and change to improve people's
lives throughout life's course.
Ashley: Fantastic. That sounds very linked to your work with the Global Centre
for Modern Ageing. What is the Global Centre for Modern Ageing?
Julianne: Well, the Global Centre for Modern Ageing is a not-for-profit organization,
and we exist for the reasons I have just described to you, Ashley. It is
understanding the way in which people are changing the way they wish to live
their lives in their sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties, and beyond,
realizing that an extended longevity is part of life. But also understanding
that we are not necessarily living better. And so, we want to bring evidence
and understanding that allow and almost to be the conduit, I guess, as an
organization with our research platform and our co-design capability that is
internationally accredited to allow older people to work alongside research
partners, entrepreneurs, organizations, not-for-profits, and governments, to
imagine how they would like to live their life going forward and what products
or services we should invent from this moment on. Be it adaptations of existing
products or services, or brand-new ways of thinking that we bring to the market
to allow people to have two things. A better choice, by the way, in which they
decide how they will spend their day participating in life, contribute to
society, and at the same time be supported, and the breadth of choices. So,
improve the quality of the choices and the breadth of the choices, but all
informed by the people who are wanting to live their lives differently.
Ashley: Well, that is fantastic. That seems like an important element that can
often be missing in the creation of new services and new products. Would you
agree that the work of the Global Centre for Modern Ageing is primarily
research-based?
Julianne: We certainly use research and evidence to inform the basis of
everything that we do. It is always co-designed with the older person at the
forefront. With that said, we do appreciate that life is intergenerational, and
humanity at its best is when it acts as a holistic community. So, we are not
limited with the work that we do to purely older people, but it is the
centricity of older people that we have at the forefront of our work. And with
the emergence of the growing numbers of population both in Australia, ASEAN,
and indeed globally, what better investment can we be making in society and in
the economy than to get this right.
Ashley: Absolutely. And just before we started recording, you were mentioning
the life lab that you are heading down there today. What is the life lab?
Julianne: Thank you. Well, the life lab is a set of processes and methodologies
in a form of a physical place which allows us to have a safe independent
platform to test and validate trial products and services that are existing and
future ideas to inform better product development into the future. The life lab
itself is a simulated studio which we have based at the Tonsley Innovation
Precinct here in South Australia. It is one of the leading innovation precincts
worldwide. Our research encouraged us to base that facility there so that we
could support Australian entrepreneurs, governments, and citizens, to have a
safe place to carry out trialling, testing, and validation, often as you would
appreciate, Ashley, where we need products to work is in real life settings.
That is where life takes place. So, our work takes place in various forms, but
the simulated studio which has cameras and sensors and allows us to store and
record people's nonverbal and verbal responses to the experiences they are
having with a particular product or service or even the notion of a new product
or service, to help inform that development. The Tonsley Precinct has
innovation status which allows us to do some testing in a safe and
well-governed way. But that it would not be allowed in a normally regulated
spot. So, by way of example, four or five years ago, the Tonsley Innovation
Precinct had autonomous vehicles being trialled there well before as we are
seeing them trailed now in communities, townships, and cities. So, it is at the
leading edge, if you like, to allow that innovation to accelerate through smart
iterations of code design and development.
Ashley: Awesome. So, this sounds like a lot of the co-designing opportunities
are coming through the life lab.
Julianne: Well, certainly, it is almost our front door. Be it via zoom meetings
such as the one we are having today or teleconferences, and certainly
face-to-face visits when we are in different years that are not as COVID
influenced as right now. And we can theme the simulated studio. We have a fully
working kitchen which allows us to not just imagine but work through the
practicalities of working with food and its relationship to packaging, to the
marketing, tools and equipment in the kitchen, that allow us to get on with
living our lives independently. We are also able to theme the space entirely
neutral and then create environments, a workplace of tomorrow, bedrooms of
tomorrow, homes of tomorrow, doctor surgeries of tomorrow, and all sorts of
spaces and places that reflect real life environments.
Ashley: Well, it is exciting to imagine the potential of that sort of space and
having a dedicated environment which you can try on new things in.
Julianne: Well, absolutely. And one of the dedicated nuances of what we have is
the night vision that we have with our cameras and sensors. So, as we know,
people are wanting to live at home for as long as they can stay independent for
as long as possible and to be supported as distinct to be cared for
necessarily. And where support meets care, what is that transition? And then to
full care, what does that look like? So, we are fascinated by the transition
points that all of us go through as humans. Not that age is necessarily the
reason we transition. Life events make us transition. The moment you trip and
fall in, you are in a moon boot. The moment you have a newborn, you are
navigating in a pram, or you are the grandmother navigating the pram. All those
circumstances in life create changes where we need to adapt ourselves and
hopefully with products or services that enable us to live the way we intend
to. But this life lab with that space does provide a safe house, a
well-governed house, an evidence-based house, to inform when we do conduct
trials in real-life settings, what were some of the glitches that we might want
to narrow down or avoid as a result of those early trials? So, it brings more
confidence to the real-life trials, and it is certainly fabulous for our
products that are in prototype stage. People are wanting to test and iterate
all sorts of aspects. Be them technology enabled products or services, or raw
training that might be given by a carer to a resident of an aged care home.
There is no limit to the way in which we can utilize the space to inform the
future.
Ashley: To give the listeners an idea of the kinds of things that you can try
on there, do you have any things that have been trialled recently in the life
lab?
Julianne: Oh, sure. We have had some fantastic projects. I think what is
important here is the quality of the co-designer. So, it is the people who are
part of our community. We have a Global Centre for Modern Ageing community of
co-designers that are predominantly older people, but not only, who put their
hands up to be parts of trials of varying types and persuasions. A terrific one
that comes to mind was an entrepreneur who had created a physiotherapy
rehabilitation device. At the time, it was designed for high-performance
athletes to recover from injuries or sporting ailments and get back on field.
It was to support them and their sports physiotherapist. This entrepreneur
realized that there are a lot of older people on the planet than
high-performance athletes. And if he were to take his product and adapt it
through co-design process, what could be the possibilities? And that was a
tremendous project to work through. In fact, what was most interesting when we
ran that project through the life lab with the entrepreneur, their research
partner, and also the co-designers themselves or the older people, he was
fascinated as an entrepreneur to learn that he did not need to change too many
aspects of his product at all. So, one of the things about our work is not
always that you need to make excessive changes to things. What our platform
does do though is provide the evidence and the confidence that the changes you
make will be in line with the sorts of desires of the experience your ultimate
end customer or end user would want. That is one example. And since then, that
entrepreneur has shifted his business strategy, which is now, I believe,
entirely focused on creating products and services for the older people market.
So, he is now got more other projects in research and development. So, it sends
a signal to Australian businesses about older people being an important
consumer base, a wealth of importance, to clearly understand. And when you
create products or services with those people helping you guide that direction
of the development; the benefits can be numerous. It is almost too many to
mention.
Ashley: Yeah. It sounds like you guys are well positioned between policy and
private enterprise and innovation. And, like you said, creating awareness that
there is a market there for elder people to engage in products and that maybe
there is more potential than originally thought. We are recording this
interview in late August two thousand twenty, and there is this pandemic going
on. I think the Global Centre for Modern Ageing has done quite a bit of research
throughout the pandemic. Is that right, Julianne?
Julianne: Oh, look. Unlike many others around the globe, we were concerned, and
yet at the same time, fascinated by what the COVID-19 pandemic meant to people.
And as an organization, we invested quite quickly in seeking to understand that
in the context of Australians living at home. In fact, we have undertaken to
date a study during COVID that has been running since March in sort of six or
eight-week increments reaching over a between one thousand two hundred and one
thousand three hundred people's homes in Australia. Of people aged over the age
of eighteen, Ashley, as I said, we are interested in older people, but we love
to see that in the context of how it is affecting society. We were keen to understand
what has been changing for people during that time. As recently as I can think,
our next report is due out by the end of this week. So, that will be the latest
one. It is available on our website, publicly available, and all free to assist
the society to understand. Some remarkable insights have come from that work.
Ashley: Yeah. Can you give us a little teaser of some of the insights that you
found?
Julianne: Sure. Well, I think at the outset, it is fair to say that older
people have shown resounding resilience during this period. Despite often being
older people at the centre of the concern as we saw with the high-risk
categories early on, and that has remained the case not only in one category
clearly but concerning one that we needed to keep safe. Because one of the
positive things we saw from that is that during the pandemic, through the eyes
of people who completed the survey, they were buoyed by the community
involvement. Outreached citizens gave to each other support and care whether it
is your neighbour, the extended use of contacting friends and family and
reaching out in ways that people did not normally take time for and have the
mindfulness and thoughtfulness to do. So, they brought a great deal of
confidence that this pandemic, as dire and as serious as it is, was bringing
what we call a silver lining to the equation here in Australia.
Julianne: Certainly, these stories are replicated as we have seen in use around
the world and media. So, we are not limited to this good positive aspect of the
response to COVID. What we also saw was this increase in the comfort and the
use of technology. I can say that older people have been leading the charge in
this regard. We found it so interesting that that formed the depth of our
second form of inquiry where we wanted to understand what is happening behind
the doors of people in the homes of respondents that had used Telehealth since
the COVID outbreak. Eighty-four percent rated their overall Telehealth
experience either the same or better than face-to-face consultations. So, this
satisfaction was higher when Telehealth was with the respondents' regular
doctor though, but the overwhelming evidence was that people were comfortable
with or found it the same or better than the ability to log on over eighty-five
percent of cases, and the privacy that pertain to that from their perspective
for their consults. They were with doctors, they were with Allied Health
Specialists, there were some mental health visitations as well. Some of these
were by phone, and some of them by video conference such as Zoom. It is fair to
say that there was more uptake with phone than with video, but it is also fair
to say that the confidence that came from the video conference and face-to-face
was interesting.
Julianne: Now, we know this was undertaken during a period where people were
asked to stay home and not to get on buses and visit their hospitals. The
surgeries were asking people to limit some of the visitations in person. So, we
are also interested in understanding, as the pandemic may lift in the future,
other health choices of creating or gaining your health care advice will be
opened again. Where does Telehealth fit as a legitimate part in the blend that
suits the patient their care and family members? And equally, the clinician or
their health provider, because it is important that this technology platform
serves both parties to make sure that the health care experience is the right
one for the patient each time.
Ashley: Yeah, I can see that there are a lot of opportunities now that you have
some data on how Telehealth is being received. It seems like it could be
reimagined with its position as a viable alternative to a face-to-face visit.
Julianne: Well, it certainly can be a healthy alternative on the right occasions.
But we would also acknowledge that there are times where it is not a
replacement for the face-to-face visit. So, we are certainly not asking it to
replace, but it could extend the offerings of the way in which people consume.
Of course, regional listeners would be aware of this. Telehealth is pioneered
out in the regions by the sake of necessity, I guess in the same vein, of the
COVID restrictions that forced us to think about new frontiers even if your
doctor's surgery is a hundred fifty meters from your home, not one thousand
five hundred kilometres from your home.
Ashley: So, Julianne, another paper that the Global Centre released called
"Ageing in the right place" found that eight out of ten people wanted
to remain in their current home if possible. What are some challenges that
arise through that?
Julianne: Well, there is a near universal desire for people to age in their own
homes wherever possible. It does not mean that they do not want to improve or
refit and repurpose their home to make it meet those needs. But as we know, age
is one determinant, but not the only one. There are many points and transitions
in life as we mentioned earlier that trigger and signal the need to change
maybe your physical place. But most people are not proactively modifying their
homes in preparation. Most of the modifications occur under duress like after
an accident or an incident. So, decisions can be rushed. There are
opportunities for builders, designers, and architects to specialize in the
provision of that home in the that growth sector of both people who are living
independently at home, people living in residential villages, and people living
in aged care societies or communities as well. What we saw that is important to
people was a term that we coined while undertaking this research and finding
the insights. It was the term of "House, home, and haven." And that
for many people, they have a pragmatic space that you might call your house,
the physical form that provides you shelter and some levels of safety.
Julianne: But over time, when we live in a space that becomes our own, we make
our own experiences that we have in that home, the joy, sometimes the
adversities, but it becomes more of a home that we have a collection of things
around us that remind us of where we have been and where we are. And then, we
can really transcend into a haven like space which is the sanctuary or the
space in which we want to live. One of the things that happen through this
large expensive project that we ran called "Ageing in the right
place" was there were people explaining to us and providing insights that
this notion of "House, home, and haven" can be in many forms. This
was not a group of highly wealthy and privileged individuals, nor was it a
group of socially and economically struggling individuals. It was a blend of
people who responded to it. There were people who own their home, and there
were people who rented their home, and we had no idea whether the people had
mortgages or not. So, this was a primal response to how individuals would seek
to live their life. We have been working with this research to try and support
people who are responsible for creating the spaces and places in which we live
to allow them to understand that not all of this is about large infrastructure
spend. You can live in quite a grand place and have loneliness and isolation
and not have a feeling of well-being. You can live in a far more modest
dwelling and have that true tranquillity.
Julianne: So, the essence of this is thoughtfulness and understanding of what
the needs are for that person now and into the future, and how to assemble the
support, the products, and the services in the form that allow us to have that.
So, we use this work to illustrate the expansiveness of what is possible in areas
where the product development industry has not quite gone before. But if we
talk about ensuring that people have great places to live, participate in life,
and engage throughout all of life's course, this is definitely a growth in an
undernourished sector to be understood and one that we would like to help
inform. It is not just the space; it is the precinct and the areas around it.
And so, that is where the community steps into the fray for this important
conversation.
Ashley: Yeah, you touched on something early in that there are a lot of
decisions are made quickly and under duress in response to perhaps a fall or an
incident, and that perhaps better decisions will be made if they are made
proactively. Do you think that there needs to be a change in kind of the
thinking around these changes so that it is more acceptable to think about home
modifications before they become necessary?
Julianne: Oh, absolutely. One hundred percent. This is part of life planning.
And when we say that people often immediately go to life planning as meaning
financial planning. But we see it more holistically than that. We do see the
importance of understanding your wellness and your well-being agenda and what
you are prepared and able to do to help self-regulate yourself and stay as well
as you can. That is the best way to live a good life. It is to be preventative
where possible, but of course we must consider the importance and the natural
aspects that can come with chronic diseases as well as part of life as we age
and other aspects. So, we want people to be assisted with ways to think through
their life planning which takes into account the physical, the emotional, the
spiritual, the intellectual, and the environmental, and then to help people
form their futures going forward. That is why we are happy to be working with
younger generations on proactive wellness initiatives as well. So, there is an
intergenerational uplift. We are not only interested in the next few years,
which of course is important to us, the commitment to citizens as they are
ageing right now, but we have a long term vision that is decades into the
future to be supporting people as they age throughout life's course.
Ashley: Well, yeah. It sounds like the scope is, as you said multiple times
now, massive that you have an opportunity to change the way that people think
about ageing and the way that people think about planning for their lives. It
sounds like the steps that the Global Centre is putting in with younger
generations are going to sow seeds for the future.
Julianne: Well, we hope to be part of a much broader collaboration of the
ecosystem to help make this happen. But absolutely, that is our intention. We
always try to encourage intergenerational responses so we can think about
aspects like mental wellness and well-being. We see some dramatic and alarming
numbers and narratives happening for older people, but equally and
unfortunately, there is no age determinant here. We see youth and youth suicide
as increasing. How do we assemble the wisdom and the knowledge of older people
to support younger people? These are leadership roles. This is not about older
people always have been the recipient of other people's care and support,
though that is helpful, it is good if we are intergenerational in this, but it
is also the leadership roles that we can play participating in life. Not to be
taking leadership away from people. This is the time where they have got the
most to offer. They have walked down this path longer than anyone else, and
they have learned a lot on the way. Many are prepared to share their wisdom and
their point of view. Many are seeking for someone wise to listen to. One of the
aspects about improving people's lives as we age is workforce engagement and
volunteering. So, it is workforce engagement transitions. Society has so long
have had this fixed term about retirement which really does not do many people justice
if anyone at all.
Julianne: How do we allow people to stay actively engaged in ways, paid and
unpaid, that are meaningful and purposeful to that individual and to society?
Too often from what we see at the Global Centre of Modern Ageing, the
disconnect, the team product development of new products and services for
people as consumers, rests in part because the organizations themselves do not
have people of the age and the persuasion of the consumers are seeking to make.
So, be it financial services where you have asked people to retire at a
specific age, and yet your consumers are living well into their nineties and
hundreds, if only we had more representation. So, we talk about diversity in
the workplace. But the one that is least understood and the least spoken about
is ageism. It permeates in a way that I think is dangerously pervasive to the
way in which we view each other, and we shame our future selves when we talk
about how we age. So, having an open door and freedom, their managements will
think differently about the age diversity that we bring in alongside gender and
race and the other important parts of the mix. I think we will do a lot for
improving the way in which organizations naturally think about their consumer
base in the future.
Ashley: That is fantastic. If we jump back to the "Ageing in the right
place" paper, there is another piece of evidence in here. Only five
percent of surveyed respondents would consider moving into an aged care
facility if they needed help. What do you think this says about aged care
facilities, and what can age care providers do to address this?
Julianne: Well, I think it is essentially more to do with one of those other
most significant transitions in life. Where, as you mentioned earlier, these
happen at times of a critical incident. And so, at some level as an individual,
it is perhaps a grudge transition. Nobody necessarily walks towards wanting to
have to do that.
Ashley: Do you think there is a way to change the appreciation of aged care
facilities from something that might have to happen into something that is
exciting for people who are ageing?
Julianne: I think it can be meaningful in many ways when it is done well,
right? So, I think there are already examples of that. But what I think we are
seeing is possibly the trend that people are wanting to stay at home for
longer. So, I think what we will see is more of a growth in the ability to
bring better products or services and adapt those homes accordingly to allow
people to age in their own homes for longer than we have ever done before. And
perhaps in some of the community settings as well allow to people to stay
inside in settings with better products and services. Technology can also be
part of helping to monitor our health in that regard, but not limited to that,
it will be carers and services into the home. So, I think you will see a grow.
I certainly am not suggesting that aged care and residential aged care is not
playing a necessary role, it certainly plays an important role, but the
improvements to it, I think, could be informed by some of the changes we are
going to be seeing down the line a bit earlier as people are wanting to age at
home.
Julianne: So, I think there will be less linear progression there, and I also
think that people will have moments and transitions where you might go into an
area of supported care or a higher level of supported care, which we are already
seeing in Australia for a period of time while you rehabilitate. And then you
might return to your home. So, less of that linear gate that you are going
through one gate of living into the next phase and then the next and then that
is it. I think we will see a more fluid relationship, and that will be through
the investment of providers, government, the organizations, and the
entrepreneurs who are not operating in this space yet. But who will be in the
future?
Ashley: Yeah, thank you for that clarification. It shows that it does not need
to be a binary situation between living in your home and living in a care
facility, but the lines can be blurred. It can become grey areas, and we can
take the best of both worlds by putting those aspects from the home into the
aged care facility or aspects of care into the home and moving forward. It
sounds like the research that the Global Centre has found supports that idea.
That it is less of a cut and dry now that you are in a home. It is more of as
you said, a fluid approach. What are some trends you are beginning to see a new
products and services within the aged care industry or within the care industry
for elderly Australians?
Julianne: There is a lot of innovation. We will have application to both the
home and in residential care as we spoke about earlier. That is our belief. For
example, devices that collect health data and transmit it to a central point
enabling artificial intelligence to identify the level of direct health care
intervention required. Health care will be about the analysis pre-emptive
management. The physical consultation when required, there are some exciting
developments in assistive technologies and robotics for simply helping carers
with things as important but as simple as the heavy lifting that is required in
aged care. So, we are seeing it in Century, we will be seeing it in new food
products and innovations, we will be seeing it in access and mobility, and to
help people as was mentioned earlier, passive sensors to help monitor people's
wellness in the home to make sure that if others are not around, they are still
in a good space so to speak.
Ashley: We have covered so much stuff in this conversation. I just have one
more question before we go. You have a quote that is front and centre on your
LinkedIn page that says, "What if the great achievement of longevity is
not a longer old age, but a longer midlife." What does that quote mean to
you?
Julianne: Well, it means a lot to me. What I mean by it is that in our midlife,
we give ourselves permission, and we give ourselves expectation. Just as we did
in earlier stages of life, we set ourselves' plans, we set ourselves goals. We
set ourselves' permission to make investment in ourselves to improve ourselves
to make sure that our relationships are of the value and of the health, if I
can use that term, that is rightful for both you and the other parties as part
of those relationships. Be them in your personal lives or your professional
lives. We invest in our wellness. We do not stop having aspiration around what
our future could be. We realize that we bring our own efforts and our
wherewithal to the table, and we can learn and grow to support those future endeavours.
Julianne: We are mindful of how we should and could be supporting others who
are in their midlife journey and wanting to develop themselves. I use it
because the end of life is there for all of us. Life is there from the
beginning to the destination of time in this form that we know. But that does
not mean we cannot continue to grow and nurture ourselves and others alongside
us. I would hate to think that at any point, a birthday or potentially a
significant transition in our lives which are all going to happen if we
continue to live, those things will not be taken off the table. They will
happen into the future if we live. How do we still allow ourselves to grow, and
importantly, look out around us and to see others around the globe to encourage
them and support them to grow? So, I am taken by the wonderful models of people.
I see people at eighty-nine showing an amazing midlife now. I see the way they
invest in their friends, having their friends over, engaging and supporting
their contacts, and continuing to learn in their own way. So, they share, they
develop, and they extend what they know to others.
Julianne: I was with somebody just on Saturday. I was watching the footy with
her at her home. Eighty-nine years old and a glowing exemplar in my mind of a
woman completely in the throes of her midlife, and therefore, that mindset
allows that to happen. I think the end of life will come for us all. As it
comes, we want to look back and say, "Did we give ourselves permission and
did government and society around us support us in our decision to live the
life we wanted to live on our terms and in our time?" I want that for
everyone around the globe. I feel like that responsibility utterly rests with
organizations like the Global Centre for Modern Ageing and many others like
governments that are large or small, organizations that are large or small,
not-for-profits, and humanity to get together to support the consciousness and
the mindset of how powerful that can be.
Ashley: Where can people find out more of all the things we have been talking
about today?
Julianne: We would love people to jump on our website at the www.gcma.net.au. Sign-up if you would like to receive GCMA research.
Sign-up if you want to be a co-designer. We are fortunate that three thousand
three hundred people have organically just joined us in the last couple of
years. All these people are interested in two things. One, the curiosity to
understand modern ageing better. And for many, the investment of changing the
way they live to encourage a more inclusive future where older people are at
the centre of all the positive that is ahead of us all.
Ashley: Fantastic, Julianne. Thank you so much for your time today.
Julianne: It is such a pleasure. Thank you.
Ashley: Well, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Aged Care Enrichment
podcast brought to you by SilVR Adventures. If you would like to find out more,
you can visit our website at www.silvradventures.com.au. That is S-I-L-V-R
adventures. and of course, do not forget to subscribe, or if you get your
podcasts, to make sure you do not miss out on the next one. My name is Ashley
De Neef. Thank you so much for listening, and I will see you next time.
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