KTN Age Innovators - Episode 4: Activating Our Ageing Population

Innovate UK

Innovate UK’s Knowledge Transfer Manager, Karen Wilkinson, introduces listeners to leading researchers and innovators whose work has the potential to support us as we age.

Brought to you by the Healthy Ageing Challenge Community of Practice, hosted by Innovate UK, this series spotlights the pioneering innovations being developed to shape the future of our longevity and explores the inspiration behind the work that’s currently taking place.

Episode 4: Activating Our Ageing Population

How can technology and innovation support us as we age? And how on earth might they make someone’s kitchen bigger? In this episode of The Age Innovators, host Julia Glenn, Design Innovation Lead from the Innovate UK Healthy Ageing Challenge, talks to John Hymus, MD of Innerva - the healthy ageing, therapy, and rehabilitation solution, to explore these questions and more.

Bringing intelligent technology into the care market Innerva is a UK-based designer and manufacturer of power-assisted exercise and wellbeing equipment, which provides a ‘helping hand’ in a low impact, full-body workout circuit for exercisers who demand to work smart and effectively.

Innerva users include the over 65s and people living with disabilities, those with poor mobility, people with long-term health conditions and those in need of rehabilitation therapies.

Join Julia and John as they discuss how Innerva's exercise equipment works, the benefits of isokinetic strength training in rehabilitation, and the company's mission to promote healthy and active aging. John will walk you through the practical aspects, providing insights into how Innerva aims to help people improve their daily movement.

Learn how digitising exercise equipment is enabling data capture and gamification, the importance of co-design and testing the user experience in live environments, and why the Innerva team is continually iterating to produce equipment that’s both engaging and effective.

John also reveals the five elements of healthy ageing, the research methodologies encouraging a community of people to exercise together, and the power of social wellbeing to combat loneliness and drive behaviour change. Oh, and he reveals the secret to the expanding kitchen too.

Click here to download the episode transcript.