2020 Conference Programme

The growing awareness on the needs and opportunities brought by an extended lifespan raises the challenge of financing the deployment and development of innovative solutions. While the main investment sources in innovation for healthy ageing depend on the public sector, how can governments stimulate private players to finance innovative projects? What investments are being made today in Europe and what types of investors are involved? Which funding instruments to create new synergies between public and private investors and leverage the funds’ destination and impact?

Alongside IP strategies, having a clear regulatory strategy is crucial to avoid failure to approval. Clearly defining the final product regulatory framework and target markets is not to be overlooked. Therefore, it is key to integrate these parameters from the development phase. What are the pitfalls to be anticipated at the early stage of R&D?

An increasing diversity of wearables can be adapted for the older population and can be helpful in the early detection, monitoring and management of medical conditions. However, less is known about the effective use of wearables among elderly populations. This roundtable discussion aims to provide an overview of available technologies and solutions: What are their current use and actions? What are their current results and potential benefits both for patients and organisations? Which applications for the collected data?

Relying on information technologies, digital health has the potential to deliver engaging, personalised, and improved care solutions, and can support an increasing number of caregivers.  What are the consequences for the players involved? To what extent are digital solutions adding value to care delivery? How are informal carers and older adults adopting the technology? Is the generated data bringing new levels of accountability for caregivers and clinicians?

Frailty is mostly associated with an increased vulnerability of older adults such as a decrease in physical activity, low energy, unintentional weight loss and loss of grip strength. However, frailty is not an inevitable consequence of ageing and can be prevented and managed to foster a longer and healthier life. Which role are digital solutions playing in the early identification and assessment of frailty core features?  How can they enable preventive measures to be applied in time? Which opportunities for improved and personalised geriatric interventions?

A growing number of researches have shown that a lower intake of some nutrients and proteins is associated with higher risk of cognitive decline or dementia, stressing out the importance of both healthy dietary patterns and the benefits of an adapted nutrition. How are we acting on this scientific information to promote healthy brain ageing? How to identify population groups which do not have an adequate nutrition for cognitive decline prevention? Which specific products and nutrition programs to accompany older adults at risk?

Personalised nutrition relies on individual differences in response to various nutrients depending on the age, lifestyle activities, genotype and epigenome. This precision-based approach is expected to reduce disease risk, especially for people with long-term conditions, and could be a sustainable way to improve the quality of ageing life by giving fine-tuned dietary recommendations. How to integrate existing health conditions, personal monitoring and tailored coaching to leverage the outcomes of healthy nutrition patterns?

A majority of older adults at risk of malnutrition are living at home dealing with the challenges of accessing and preparing healthy and adapted food. There is therefore a need to provide the correct mix of services to allow older adults to maintain their independence and health from home delivered meal program infrastructure, delivery mechanisms. Is the current offer broad enough to meet the needs of older adults at home? What are the innovative services in Europe to learn from?

Older adults beneficiating from home care is on an upward trend in Europe and likely to continue since the related costs are lower than residential care. Besides, innovative solutions and wider services are emerging, renewing the options for older Europeans preferring to be cared for in their own home. Hence, long-term care institutions have been rethinking their caring approach towards outpatient care and development of home-based services. To what extent is this trend tackling the difficulties of building physical structures? Who are the older adults concerned by this “at-home” offer and what is the scope of the associated services? What is the added value of nursing homes and which best practices should we draw upon?

Regulatory restrictions, operating and technical constraints are driving the global consolidation in the care sector in favour of the most efficient and innovative players. Limited by their growth in the domestic market, major long-term care providers have started exporting their models and expertise. How are they internationalising their purchase of innovations? To what extent can working globally with providers contribute to the development and strengthening of a European silver economy market?

Long-term care institutions rely on primary health care to access medical care and specialist services.  Records of inappropriate and unplanned hospital admissions as well as the recognition of unmet health needs have highlighted the necessity to improve the exchange of information between care homes and hospitals. To what extent is data management facilitating cooperation and effective decision-making to deliver enhanced care to residents? This session aims to evaluate the different interoperable approaches and identify barriers and facilitators to integrated working.

Although most countries have developed a vision on home care at national level, many local authorities have considerable responsibility and discretion for designing home-care systems in their areas. This can allow them to adapt to their geographical and demographic specificities and enable easier integration between care providers. Through feedback and discussions from different countries, this session will review the best practices to care for older adults at home and how scalable are these initiatives.

Though a majority of older adults want to remain at home, the homes themselves are often unsuitable and inadequate to continue living with safety and independence. While there is a growing awareness that new housing should meet and adapt lifetime home standards, most of the homes that will exist in 2050 have already been built. Therefore, improving and adapting existing homes should heavily be considered to enable ageing in place. Which innovations are required in both technology and delivery models to meet the needs of older adults at home and their carers? To what extent are the inhabitants included in identifying best practices and challenging planning and design?

Healthcare professionals at home or in long-term care facilities are the cornerstone to providing quality care to older adults. Hence, managing the personal safety and health risks for care workers remains a substantial challenge as they may work in a decentralised environment or facing chronic overtime and physical strain. How to ensure that health care workers have the knowledge and tools to protect themselves and ease their work conditions?  What are the good practices and innovations that could be transferred?