2023-07-03 16:53:23
An elderly gentleman pushes on the pedals. A road opens up before his eyes, with flowers and expanses of grass on either side. The sun is high, occasionally the sound of a car is heard. The man chats with another cyclist, smiles. They would appear to be next to each other, but in reality they are miles apart. The elderly man is wearing a visor mounted on a helmet. He really pedals, but on a stationary bike inside an Rsa. Even if the immersive virtual reality projects him outside the walls of the health facility, thanks also to the contribution of his pedaling ‘companion’, a cyclist in the flesh, with whom he is connected. All this could happen with a project called ‘Telecyclette’.
It was funded by the Velux Stiftung Foundation in Zurich. The experimentation has a four-year duration (3 years of testing and one year between the initial preparation phase and the final data collection and processing phase). The laboratory of action, perception and cognition (Lapco) of the Faculty of Psychology of the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University in Milan, directed by Claudio de’Sperati, is the leader. Mission: to combat the risk of physical isolation, the decline of motor activity and emotional impoverishment, which the elderly, especially when they live in assisted structures, can encounter. Three issues that have a strong negative impact on the management of physical comorbidities and overall quality of life.
The experimentation is conducted by a multidisciplinary team involving other professors of the Faculty of Psychology: Gabriel Baud-Bovy, researcher at Lapco; Giuseppe Pantaleo, full professor of social psychology and director of the UniSr-Social.Lab (research laboratory in social psychology); Simona Sciara, researcher of the UniSr-Social.Lab. The project was presented in recent days by de’Sperati, associate of Psychobiology and Physiological Psychology at the UniSr Faculty of Psychology, in Amsterdam during the ‘Xr4Rehab Annual Conference 2023’. Experts aim to introduce a new rehabilitation model for the elderly hospitalized in nursing homes.
The elderly population, with the increase in longevity and life expectancy, especially in Europe and North America is constantly growing. Between 2020 and 2050, the over 80s should triple, exceeding the ceiling of 400 million people. The Telecyclette project takes its cue from indoor cycling systems with virtual reality, already available on the market for enthusiasts, but differs in the telecommunication system that puts a room exercise bike in dialogue, located for example in the gym of a nursing home, and a real bicycle. Wearing an immersive virtual reality viewer, mounted on a helmet, the elderly person is projected onto a real bicycle on which a person is pedaling at that moment and on which a video camera is mounted, with a 360-degree overview, connected in real time , via a 5G mobile network, to the virtual reality system.
In addition to the video camera, a microphone and a small loudspeaker are also mounted on the bicycle, so as to make it possible to both have a conversation and listen to noises from outside. The telecyclette therefore allows the elderly to feel on a real bicycle (telepresence), to be precise on a tandem with which to ‘escape’ from the RSA by pedaling and at the same time conversing with the pedaller. In a further and subsequent development, the elderly will also be able to actively control, in real time, the speed and direction of the bicycle, thanks to a remote control mechatronic system, for which a patent application has already been filed for which co-owners of UniSr and Fondazione Cariplo – by virtue of the funding with which the latter supported the start of the project – and whose eventual initial proceeds will be invested “50% in research activities in this area, according to an ethical management of the patent , for social purposes”, reads a note.
The project is carried out in cooperation with the Multisensory Experience Lab of the University of Aalborg (Denmark) which, thanks to the support of Emil Høeg, co-director of the Telecyclette project, and Stefania Serafin, co-director of the Multisensory Experience Lab, will to develop immersive software and to study virtual interaction during the telecycle bike experience. The team coordinated by Sergio Mascetti, of the ‘Giovanni Degli Antoni’ Department of Computer Science at the University of Milan will also take care of the development, in particular by developing the technology that allows data to be acquired from the real bicycle and transmitted to the viewer reality camera worn by the elderly. Crucial will then be the collaboration with two RSAs, San Giuseppe of Milan (Monte Tabor Association) and Residenza il Trifoglio of Turin (Bios Social Cooperative), where the test activities with the elderly will be conducted, which will begin in the autumn.
A contribution also comes from the Kallipolis association, a non-profit reality in Trieste that deals with urban regeneration, which will have the task of organizing the cycling accompaniment service. The project is also made possible thanks to the collaboration of the Seriana2000 social cooperative of Cesenatico, operating throughout the country, which will take care of the social and health assistance of a part of the elderly involved in the project.
“The rapid aging of the world population is a phenomenon that needs to be tackled on a large scale in an effective and timely manner”, underlined de’Sperati. “Residential facilities for the elderly could be a good answer, but which in fact almost always translates into isolation. However, we can imagine a future in which the grandson will call his grandfather in the RSA on the phone, proposing him to take a telecycle ride together, or in which it will be possible for an elderly person, a bit like a taxi, to book a ride on a telecyclette with a volunteer who gives some of his time or by relying on a network of remote cycling guides, a possible new craft that this project prefigures.It is precisely making virtually possible something considered impossible for elderly people living in nursing homes, i.e. pedaling in the open air in company, which makes us say that this project can represent a real revolution in the rehabilitation of the elderly and, therefore, in improving their quality of life”.
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