Helping seniors stay flexible and mobile is critical to their ability to live independently. A small Ontario company has been working with Sheridan College to create an online program to help older adults keep their functional mobility through exercise at home.
Attune Aging Strategies and Solutions is a husband and wife team that developed an idea for reaching frail older adults who have no way to get to the therapeutic care they need after an injury or operation. With the help of Sheridan College’s Centre for Elder Care, the physiotherapist and occupational therapist designed a technology-supported exercise program for physiotherapy so older patients could do their rehabilitation exercises at home. The exercise program is now on sale and Attune is working on ways to train home support workers to deliver better care when they go in to check on patients.
“The opportunity to partner with the Sheridan Centre for Elder Research and NSERC allowed our ‘idea’ for serving older adults in the community to develop into a new Canadian business,” says Anita Salituri, owner of Attune Aging Strategies and Solutions. “The applied research study helped us to better understand the clients we serve, and findings were used to create our first product, which was released to the marketplace in November 2014. Sheridan’s expertise, resources and professional consultation throughout this process has been invaluable and they have played a tremendous role in assisting us through our entrepreneurial journey.”
The Sheridan Centre for Elder Research has seen tremendous impacts on both students and industry partners during the five year research program. Students from a number of programs have worked as research assistants and volunteers on applied research projects. They consistently cite their real-world experience in applied research as the reason they graduate as highly-competitive job candidates, and often secure high-quality jobs immediately after graduating.
