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What's the fastest growing threat[br]to Americans' health?

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Cancer? Heart attacks? Diabetes?

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The answer is actually none of these:

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it's Alzheimer's disease.

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Every 67 seconds,

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someone in the United States[br]is diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

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As the number of Alzheimer's patients[br]triples by the year 2050,

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caring for them, as well as[br]the rest of the aging population,

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will become an overwhelming[br]society challenge.

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My family has experienced firsthand

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the struggles of caring[br]for an Alzheimer's patient.

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Growing up in a family[br]with three generations,

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I've always been very close[br]to my grandfather.

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When I was four years old,

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my grandfather and I [br]were walking in a park in Japan

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when he suddenly got lost.

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It was one of the scariest moments[br]I've ever experienced in my life,

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and it was also the first instance[br]that informed us that my grandfather

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had Alzheimer's disease.

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Over the past 12 years,[br]his condition got worse and worse,

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and his wandering in particular[br]caused my family a lot of stress.

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My aunt, his primary caregiver,

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really struggled to stay awake at night[br]to keep an eye on him,

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and even then often failed[br]to catch him leaving the bed.

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I became really concerned[br]about my aunt's well-being

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as well as my grandfather's safety.

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I searched extensively for a solution[br]that could help my family's problems,

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but couldn't find one.

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Then, one night about two years ago,

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I was looking after my grandfather[br]and I saw him stepping out of the bed.

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The moment his foot landed on the floor,

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I thought, why don't I put[br]a pressure sensor on the heel of his foot?

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Once he stepped onto the floor[br]and out of the bed,

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the pressure sensor would detect an[br]increase in pressure caused by body weight

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and then wirelessly send an audible alert[br]to the caregiver's smart phone.

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That way, my aunt could sleep[br]much better at night

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without having to worry[br]about my grandfather's wandering.

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So now I'd like to perform[br]a demonstration of this sock.

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Could I please have[br]my sock model on the stage?

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Great.

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So once the patient steps onto the floor,

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an alert is sent[br]to the caregiver's smartphone.

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Thank you. (Applause)

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Thank you sock model.

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So this is a drawing[br]of my preliminary design.

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My desire to create[br]a sensor-based technology

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perhaps stemmed from my life-long love[br]for sensors and technology.

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When I was six years old,[br]an elderly family friend

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fell down in the bathroom[br]and suffered severe injuries.

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I became concerned[br]about my own grandparents

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and decided to invent[br]a smart bathroom system.

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Motion sensors would be installed[br]inside the tiles of bathroom floors

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to detect the falls of elderly patients[br]whenever they fell down in the bathroom.

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Since I was only six years old at the time

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and I hadn't graduated[br]from kindergarten yet,

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I didn't have the necessary resources and [br]tools to translate my idea into reality,

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but nonetheless, my research experience

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really implanted in my a firm desire[br]to use sensors to help the elderly people.

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I really believed that sensors[br]could improve the quality of life

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of the elderly.

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When I laid out my plan, I realized[br]that I faced three main challenges:

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first, creating a sensor;

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second, designing a circuit;

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and third, coding a smartphone app.

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This made me realize that my project[br]was actually much harder to realize

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than I initially had thought it to be.

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First, I had to create a wearable sensor[br]that was thin and flexible enough[br]

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to be worn comfortably[br]on the bottom of the patient's foot.

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After extensive research and testing[br]of different materials like rubber,

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which I realized was too thick to be worn[br]snugly on the bottom of the foot,

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I decided to print a film sensor[br]with electrically conducted

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pressure sensitive ink particles.

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Once pressure is applied, the connectivity[br]between the particles increases.

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Therefore, I could design a circuit[br]that would measure pressure

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by measuring electrical resistance.

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Next, I had to design[br]a wearable wireless circuit,

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but wireless [???] transmission[br]consumes lots of power

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and requires heavy, bulky batteries.

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Thankfully, I was able to find out[br]about the blue tooth energy technology,

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which consumes very little power[br]and can be driven by a coin-sized battery.

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This prevented the system[br]from dying in the middle of the night.

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Lastly, I had to code a smartphone app[br]that would essentially transform

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the care-giver's smartphone[br]into a remote monitor.

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For this, I had to expand upon

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my knowledge of coding[br]with Java and S Code,

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and I also had to learn about how[br]to encode for bluetooth energy devices

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by watching YouTube tutorials[br]and reading various textbooks.

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Integrating these components, I was able[br]to successfully create two prototypes,

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one in which the sensor[br]is embedded inside a sock,

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and another that's[br]a re-attachable sensor assembly

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that can be adhered anywhere[br]that makes contact

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with the bottom of the patient's foot.

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I've tested the device on my grandfather[br]for about a year now,

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and it's had a 100 percent success rate[br]in detecting the over 900 known cases

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of his wandering.

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Last summer, I was able[br]to beta test my device

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at several residential[br]care facilities in California,

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and I'm currently incorporating[br]the feedback

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to further improve the device [br]into a marketable product.

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Testing the device on a number of patients

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made me realize that I need[br]to invent solutions

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for people who didn't want[br]to wear socks to sleep at night.

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So sensor data, collected[br]on a vast number of patients,

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can be useful for improving patient care

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and also leading to a cure[br]for the disease, possibly.

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For example, I'm currently examining [br]

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correlations between the frequency[br]of a patient's nightly wandering

0:05:09.848,0:05:12.714
and his or her daily activities and diet.

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One thing I'll never forget[br]is when my device first caught

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my grandfather's wandering[br]out of bed at night.

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At that moment, I was really struck[br]by the power of technology

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to change lives for the better.

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People living happily and healthfully:

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that's the world that I imagine.

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Thank you very much.

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(Applause)