How can products be made safer for use by older people?

Abstract

Making a home environment safer for older people in which to live should be high among the objectives of all architects, designers of domestic appliances and public health authorities. Accidents among older people are preventable if product designers take into account the requirements of the physically challenged user. In European countries, well over a quarter of the national total population will be over 55 years by the end of the century. The major challenge will be to improve the quality of life in old age by designing products with older people in mind. This transgenerational design concept has been put into practice in the Centre for Applied Gerontology at the University of Birmingham, UK. The Centre has established a nation-wide panel of older people above the age of 50 years and the panel is called the Thousand Elders. The panel members take part in iterative design processes to arrive at products that are generally suitable for use by older people. Such products are awarded an 'Owl mark’ to indicate that the products have been independently evaluated by older users. A similar accreditation scheme is necessary to standardise pan-European products, and guidelines to create barrier-free environments for the elderly are urgently required in order to reduce the number of home accidents. This could only help in improving the quality of life for older people and would also reduce social costs to individual European countries.