Dagny Carlsson has 103 years old, lives in Sweden and is the oldest blogger in the world. We had the chance to meet her two years ago in the AAL Forum 2013, in which Dagny was a special guest and since then we occasionally have a look on her blog.

Mrs. Dagny begun learning Informatics when she was 99 years old in a course she took and since then she maintains a personal blog where she writes about different topics and shows us her daily life in a heartwarming and optimistic manner. She shares the beauty of the little things such as her passion for nature, cooking and traveling. Quite often she shows us the desserts she cooks herself (the tasty raisin cakes and blueberries muffins) and tells us short stories of her childhood and youth memories. She also teaches us how to save money and manage personal finances.

She shows us pictures of her home, lovely decorated with flower motifs and the desk with her computer, in a corner of the living room, near the window. She tells about the traditions of her country and how much she is grateful for all she is and has.

Having lived through two world wars, in an interview for the Swedish Journal Aftonbladet, Dagny highlights the improvements in life standards, conditions and opportunities. However, she thinks that the social relationships have become different and more difficult, as nowadays people don’t care for each other. So, she intends to be a voice that alerts to some situations that elders have to face and she tries to promote reflection on this issues.

When asked about what the secret for a long life is, she answers: genes and the curiosity of always learning something new. She has an e-mail account, enjoys surfing on the web, is learning how to use her iPad, and is planning to venture on Instagram.

Recently, Dagny participated in the documentary series ” It is not so bad to get old”, displayed on the Swedish TV channel SVT. You can have a sneak peek here.

It is worthwhile following Dagny’s blog and entering the world of this lady who still appreciates the beauty of autumn leaves, despite they have caused her to fall.

Please note: photos by Dagny Carlsson on her blog.

Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS will participate on I Ciclo de Conferências da Saúde – The future of Health in Portugal. The event will take place in Porto, on October 2 and 3, and is organized by Clinicuidados – Apoio Domiciliário e Saúde, that recently joined our group of partner institutions.

The conference will support the discussion of the current stage of the Portuguese health system and the challenges that the aging will bring to the health sector will be debated. Representatives of many institutions, both public and private, will be present at the conference.

Fraunhofer’s participation will be on October 2, in 2 panels: a presentation by Dr. Liliana Ferreira entitled “Mobile solutions for managing and monitoring health”, in which many innovative technological solutions from Fraunhofer Portugal in this area will be presented; and another panel that will consists of a debate entitled “Can I get old in Portugal?”. The latter will focus on ageing in the future, considered through the perspectives of social and health politics (reformulation of health care of public or private sector and what the role of new technologies on health responses will be), in which Eng. Pedro Almeida from Fraunhofer Portugal will participate.

If you want to know more about this conference, please click here.

After a sneak peek of the “Making of” we had shown you, now is the time for us to present you the video of the ExerGames. From the images one can sense the good mood of the participants while playing these serious exercise games. This is also an example for other seniors who can have fun while exercising both physical and mentally or for someone who needs to perform rehabilitation exercises.

COLABORAR thanks all the participants for the help in the preparation of this video and for the friendship.

 

The AAL JP, a European programme that promotes projects of applied research to the areas of active ageing, has just published a news piece about COLABORAR both on its Website and on its Newsletter. A brief history of our network of co-designers and its main achievements are presented, namely over 40 Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS’s projects supported so far as well as over 1500 design & research activities carried out.

Our presentation video is displayed along the magnificent and genuine testimonials of some of our dear COLLABORATORS, that tells about their experience of collaborating and being part of such a beautiful project that brings together seniors, health and social professionals and researchers. It reveals also our future work that is now being prepared: statistical data regarding Portuguese seniors, which will allow researchers to identify great opportunities to solve some problems seniors are facing, by developing technological solutions.

We are glad that our project was chosen to be included in the news of the AAL JP, because it represents another opportunity to raise awareness about our project around Europe. If you know someone, here or abroad, who wants to join the network, please contact us.

We have told you many times about the Exergames project, about how fun it is and about our satisfaction in contributing for the development of new technological solutions to help tackle this health problem that affects the elderly population: falls.

Now is time to show you the Exergames and, in order to show how it works, we asked some COLABORAR friends to record a small video. We are in the process of editing the video, but for now we can show you some pictures of the “Making of”.

Spring time is a renovation season. Here, Spring brought a new and completely fresh Website. What changed? Everything! Or almost. New design, new content and the same proximity. We now highlight the pictures that portray our daily activities at the research center, the Day-care/living centers and at the volunteers’ homes. These pictures also show the different phases of the research process: the interviews, the questionnaires and the tests. These are mostly tests with smartphones or tablets, but also with paper prototypes and wearable sensors.

We added a glossary with words we use quite often, so that all of you understand our ‘techy’ vocabulary. We kept the information about us, the network of partner institutions, the projects we were involved in and the well-known Hall of Fame. You can keep following our blog on News, and you will be aware of the recent news. An idea here and there and the result is a cheerful and dynamic website, just like COLABORAR.

Thank you João for the dedication and for building the site just like Ana idealized it. And thank you Jorge for continuing the good work.

Enjoy our new Website and invite some friends!