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Company working on `virtual meals'

Harvey Bumpus does not like to eat alone.

But his wife died more than a year ago and his family is scattered across the country. Most nights, he heats up a simple meal of oatmeal or hot dogs and eats alone.

"I don't have much choice," said the 82-year-old retired correctional officer who looks forward to Christmas as one of the few days each year when he gathers with his family.

But when the planes, trains and automobiles that brought everyone together take his family away, he, like millions of other elderly people, will be alone again.

Now, technology consulting company Accenture is developing a system called "The Virtual Family Dinner" that would allow families to get together -- virtually -- as often as they would like.

The concept is simple. An elderly woman in, say, California, makes herself dinner. When she gets ready to sit down and eat, the system detects it and alerts her son in Chicago. The son then goes to his kitchen, where a small camera and microphone capture what he is doing. Speakers and a screen -- as big as a television or as small as a picture frame -- allow him to hear and see his mother, who has a similar setup.

"We are trying to really bring back the kind of family interactions we used to take for granted," said Dadong Wan, a senior researcher in Accenture's Chicago labs.

Experts say such interactions could address the growing problem of elderly people who eat alone often and who eat the wrong kinds of food.

"To physically eat with others, to be able to do that, there are not only social benefits, but health benefits," said Julie Locher, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Alabama-Birmingham who specializes in eating issues among older people.

Locher, who says that virtual meals could forestall the hospitalization or placement in nursing homes of elderly people, was so intrigued with Accenture's project that she plans to study it.

When a prototype becomes available, possibly in about two years, it likely will cost US$500 to US$1,000 per household, Wan said.

Senior Accenture manager Peter Glaser said he hoped insurance companies and government agencies would help pay for the system, much as they do for home health care workers, once they see its benefits.

But it must be easy to operate to attract people like Bumpus, who does not own a computer and may be intimidated by technology, Glaser said.

Although video conferencing with a computer and Web camera is widely used today, it requires technical know-how.

In Accenture's lab, projectors are mounted on the ceilings of two mock kitchens -- Wan is in one and Glaser is down the hall in the other. Activities taking place in the other room are projected onto a large window, allowing the men to watch each other; microphones allow them to carry on a conversation.

In homes, cameras and microphones could be placed on top of a counter or TV set or built into "smart picture frames that capture what is going on in one kitchen and display it in the other," Wan said.

The system could incorporate computers, television sets and broadband connections already in many homes, so customers could have the system installed in much the same way as cable television, Glaser said.

Wan said the Virtual Family Dinner goes further than today's video conferencing.

For example, when an elderly person puts a meal on the table, the system's software automatically finds family members who are connected and determines who might be available.

That could be done in any number of ways, including determining whether a networked family member is watching television. It could then send a message that would be displayed on the TV.

"It might tell you `Mom is on channel 456,'" Glaser said.

The relative could then click to that channel.

Other companies are conducting research into remote monitoring of the elderly, but no one is focusing on daily casual dining, Glaser said.

Such a window on the lives of elderly loved ones is exciting for Cai Glushak, a Chicago physician who is the care provider for his parents in New York.

"I feel very limited by only being able to talk on the phone most of the time," Glushak said.
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