Student designs help disabled elderly

Students in a third-year systems design course at UW are today displaying designs of products to improve the quality of life of elderly people with disabling conditions.

Fourteen student groups are participating in an event called Design Exhibition: Products for Disabled Elderly. The exhibition runs until 12:30 p.m. in room DC1301 of the Davis Centre.

"The average person in North America will spend close to 12 years of his or her life as a person with disabilities and the cost is more than 6.5 per cent of the gross national product," said John Zelek, associate professor of systems design engineering and exhibit organizer.

"The students in my class were challenged to design a product for the elderly disabled and the results appear in this exhibition."

Devices and software to aid the disabled often need custom modification, are prohibitively expensive or simply do not exist.

The 14 groups in Zelek's course, SYDE 361, were each required to select a unique disabling condition, identify a design-problem objective and solicit needs from an associated demographic – all to lay the groundwork for developing innovative concepts that are prototyped for display at this exhibit.

Some of the disabling conditions addressed include blindness, multiple sclerosis, mental and emotional issues, head injuries, stroke, communications difficulties, respiratory problems and AIDs.

The course and theme meet several engineering design learning objectives. It also exposes the students to rehabilitation design, which may lead to cost effective solutions, and motivates them.

Finally, it demonstrates that engineering has a crucial role in society, improving the quality of life for all and providing a unique service to the community.

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How UW would keep going in a pandemic

A preliminary plan for how UW will cope if Ontario is hit by a "bird flu" pandemic has been approved by the university's top officials and has been made available to departments. It's now available online for all to read.

There's a lot that it doesn't answer, including the ultimate question: how bad would an epidemic have to get before UW would close altogether? But it does set out some principles about keeping the university in operation in an environment where many staff and faculty members would be off sick. It itemizes the top-priority services where a number of administrative departments would concentrate their efforts in a time of crisis.

"The University of Waterloo has a history of preparing for potentially difficult situations to ensure that proper care is afforded to its faculty, staff and students," says the document, prepared by a committee that was chaired by associate provost Catharine Scott. "Recent news reports and information disseminated by the World Health Organization, the federal and provincial governments and the Waterloo Region Public Health Unit indicate that the threat of an influenza pandemic is considerable and these organizations are recommending that institutions prepare accordingly. What follows is the University of Waterloo’s plan which, as much as possible, provides guidance on how the university will cope in the event a pandemic arrives, recognizing that there will be many unknown factors. . . .

"The region’s public health unit suggests that between 15 per cent and 35 per cent of the population will become infected with this influenza virus. The planning committee has used the moderate estimate of a 30 per cent reduction in students, faculty and staff who are ill, in formulating its plan of response.

"In preparing the plan, the committee focused on the operational essentials. For instance, it was assumed that in a pandemic situation, no social engagements will occur. The recommendations therefore focus on the provision of essential operations, a communication plan, and early educational opportunities that will inform UW community members of personal protection and response strategies. . . .

"In the event UW must take decisions in the face of major disruptive events beyond its control, it will do so on the direction of medical or other authorities as appropriate, and will use its best efforts to minimize the academic consequences to its students."

The document emphasizes communication both before a crisis (with the health services department providing information and education to the campus about flu dangers, prevention, vaccination and ways of coping) and during it.

If a pandemic strikes, the university will have one spokesperson to the internal community and to outside media, and the president of the university will ask the UW community for cooperation in allowing only the designated spokesperson to speak for the university. The main communication vehicles will be the Daily Bulletin, the university's central web site and a telephone call centre that will be set up.

A pandemic steering committee will include the provost and five other top officials from the central administration, plus the dean of science, the director of health services and the director of communications and public affairs.

Departments list their vital services

The plan notes that it could end up being necessary to close the university, "either through an order by Public Health or by internal resolution." An internal decision of that kind would be up to deans' council, the central committee of top administrators, advising the president. However, it concentrates on conditions in which there would be many people off ill, but the university was still trying to operate.

The residences will need an operations plan to accommodate ill residents, the document says. "Housing, food services, the university colleges, health services, counselling, safety and UW police will have to develop protocols and procedures for maintaining residence operations as circumstances evolve and as health care authorities specify."

Continuity plans for some key departments make up part of the planning document, with indications of what special arrangements would be needed, and what activities could be postponed or dropped. Priorities include the Daily Bulletin and other communication about the crisis; keeping the telephone switchboard, campus network and central servers in operation; processing the payroll so that staff and faculty members have an income; assistance with health care claims under the employee benefit program; assistance to students who are on work terms; patient care at health services; Quest, UW-ACE and JobMine; the library's Trellis catalogue and electronic journals; student records processing; and police protection.

A critical point, the document makes clear, is operation of the central plant, which provides heating, cooling and utilties for the campus. Only a small number of staff have the necessary technical qualifications and government licensing to take charge there, it says. Possible internal assistance from Plant Ops management staff is available but would require discussions with CUPE, the union that represents plant operations staff.

"It is expected that all employer-student interviews would occur over the phone or by videoconference," says the co-op education and career services department. Health services is looking at the possible need for outreach nursing to residences, where sick bays could be established. "Dependent on the season," plant operations notes, "snow removal will be impacted, but with outside assistance major routes and walkways can be kept acceptably clear."

Says the plan: "All departments are encouraged to ensure that members needed to complete critical tasks are equipped to work from home." (The assumption is that many people who aren't ill themselves will need to be at home for family reasons, or would prefer to stay away from places where they might face a risk of catching the virus.) "We would attempt to minimize exposure by providing support electronically," the client services division of information systems and technology says.

There would be a special human resources committee (including the leaders of staff and faculty groups as well as experts from the HR department and administrators) to deal with employee issues, redeploy the workforce, establish guidelines for employee compensation and sick-leave absences unique to a pandemic and create guidelines for flexibility in work location and hours.

The plan also includes a list of manager guidelines: "Send staff home when they are ill. . . . All faculty and staff are responsible to check email and the Daily Bulletin every day. . . . Decisions are to be vetted through the appropriate vice-president, associate provost, secretary of the university or dean. . . . Managers must provide a daily update on the state of their unit (i.e., staff and faculty levels, issues)."

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