The interdisciplinary Gerontechnology and Rehabilitation Research Group is a collaborative research effort of the ARTORG Center for Biomedical Engineering Research and the Division of Cognitive and Restorative Neurology within the medical faculty at the University of Bern. The technical lead of the group is Prof. Tobias Nef and the clinical leads are Profs. Urs Mosimann and René Müri.
Gerontechnology is the study of technology and aging to promote good health, social participation, and independent living. Rehabilitation embraces the coordinated use of medical, social, professional, and technical means to improve function to enable independent participation in all areas of life with acceptable risks and good quality of life. The relevance of these fields increases with the aging of our society.
In this context, the group develops and evaluates assistive and rehabilitative technologies to support elderly and disabled people to enhance autonomy and promote independent living while reducing the risks associated with daily living. Current projects aim to promote independent living with assistive technology, ICT based tools for training and prevention of cognitive decline and virtual reality (VR) assisted rehabilitation.
