Joe Coughlin is full of provocative ideas. Talking with him, one soon discovers why the Age Lab at MIT has drawn the attention of so many people across the country who are interested in improving the experience of growing older.

Professor Coughlin founded this laboratory, a notable force for change, in 1999. He determined to bring together an interdisciplinary team of researchers and engineers in fields as disparate as health sciences and aeronautics in order to better the lives of older people.

Coughlin came to the field of aging through his work with transportation issues. He realized there was a major “infrastructure or mobility gap” between the needs of older people to get around and their available choices. After all, 70 percent of the American population live in the suburbs, but many older suburbanites have no access to transport other than the private car.

This situation highlights the contrast between our brilliant success in achieving greater longevity on the one hand, and our failure, thus far, to ensure that older people have the mobility necessary to ensure their quality of life.

In his own research, Coughlin is trying to “develop new business models that respond to the demands of today’s and tomorrow’s older adults by seamlessly integrating technology and consumer services.” This brings him into collaboration with major companies in the United States and abroad as they enter into partnerships with the Age Lab.

Already, the Age Lab, working with these industrial partners and service agencies, is developing some promising new products. In the course of a recent interview, Professor Coughlin singled out several:

• A device, either handheld or for the shopping cart, to provide personal information about healthy diet, appropriate exercise, and prescribed medications, to help people choose among products in a grocery store;
• A warning system in automobiles for left-hand turns. These turns –  -requiring judgments about speed and distance –  – are the number one causes of accidents among older drivers, with men better at judging speed, women at estimating distance;
• For drivers suffering from dementia, their family members, and caretakers, the Age Lab has co-sponsored a guide developed by The Hartford Financial Services Group and designed to prepare those drivers for phasing out operating a car altogether;
• An electronic data system that will enable people to make a daily check-up on their health. The technology already exists; the challenge is to figure out a system for professionals to respond at the other end.

Trained as a political scientist, Coughlin considers his studies to be a fine preparation for dealing with the problems of later life. “I don’t question whether or not we have the technology for fixing many of these problems,” he says. “What I question is whether society is organized in such a way as to be able to do so.”

He rates MIT’s chances high because it is accustomed to looking ahead boldly. “The real gift MIT gives any problem: it’s not afraid to be innovative.” But technology, as he sees it, is often not the issue. What he calls “the value-added part” is. Coming up with a new widget is easy compared to getting it wanted, marketed, and accepted.

For this, you have to better understand the user. Coughlin is convinced that the baby boomers will demand better-designed goods and services. If a product does not work easily, they will rightly blame the designers rather than themselves, the users.

The lack of effective technology can be seen as part of the reason why so many older people are cut off from the larger community. “Society cannot afford to have 20 percent of its people disengaged,” Coughlin says. They should be demanding a place at society’s table and they would enjoy better health if they did so.

On the contemporary scene, communities are changing. They are now being defined not so much by geographical proximity as by shared interests. The Age Lab director sees new life-long learning opportunities in the future.

The Audubon Society and the Sierra Club, for instance, could provide distance learning for the many people interested in gardening. More people should live near college campuses and every high school should be turned into a community learning center. Staying involved, learning constantly, can add vibrancy to people of just about any age.

Getting new products on the market for people of any age is time consuming. Just to get anti-lock brakes into cars sold in the United States took 17 years. Ideally, it would be advisable to get to utilize products useful in old age before that time comes. No mobile person is going to buy a wheel chair at age 40 but there are other devices, such as the microwave oven, that are useful both early on and later on.

The question of assisting older people to find meaning in their lives is complex but technology can definitely help. “Everyone has to find his own meaning,” Coughlin asserts. “The role of technology is to open the doors.”

Richard Griffin