Students design solutions for better elderly patient care

Monday, February 24, 2025

The University of Waterloo’s Pearl Sullivan Engineering IDEAs Clinic hosted a hackathon for students from the Engineering and Health faculties to challenge their collaborative design skills with a real-world problem. 

Supported by the Yuen Family Foundation, the three-day Health Tech Innovation Challenge tasked 61 undergraduate students and one graduate student to develop technological solutions for hospital-induced delirium in elderly patients. 

In partnership with the Grand River Hospital (GRH), thirteen teams of three to six students were informed that an unfamiliar and stressful hospital setting, aggravated by factors such as social isolation, a lack of physical activity and interrupted sleep, can cause disorientation and confusion in elderly patients and trigger delirium.  

Waterloo Engineering alum Ivan Yuen (BASc ’00, electrical and computer engineering), was instrumental in establishing the Health Tech Innovation Challenge. As the co-founder of Wattpad and an investor in health-tech startups, Yuen emphasized the importance of early exposure to entrepreneurial problem-solving. 

“There’s a lot of interest in addressing the challenges of aging, but not enough engineers and technologists are innovating in this area,” Yuen said. “This challenge was designed to spark students’ interest in these issues early in their careers.”  

The teams presented their solutions to a panel of judges from industry, health care and academia. The projects were assessed on innovation, feasibility, ethical considerations and safety. 

Team VitalRest won first place with their design of a smart pillow that promotes sleep through noise cancellation, monitors vital signs such as temperature and heart rate and detects delirium indicators by tracking temperature spikes and irregular heart rhythms.  

The team agreed that “this experience expanded our skills beyond traditional mechanical engineering. We got to work with electronics, circuits and coding while collaborating with students from different disciplines."

Other projects included a cat-shaped sensory-simulator device to help regulate patients’ circadian rhythms using light and aromatherapy, a wearable smartwatch to monitor patients’ vitals with a chatbot that sent suggestions based on sensor readings and a game to motivate bed-bound patients to complete their physiotherapy exercises.

Three Waterloo Engineering students pose in the IDEAs Clinic

Team VitalRest (from left to right): Waterloo Engineering students Sonja Bakowsky, Olivia Paauw and Anika Mankotia, all in their first year of a mechanical engineering degree.

“I was impressed by what the students achieved in three days,” Yuen said. “And I enjoyed seeing the interactions between the students from different disciplines. It’s very easy for engineers to focus on technology and not consider the human application of their designs. It was encouraging to hear conversations about the practical and ethical considerations involved.” 

The workshop was led by Waterloo Engineering alum Silas Ifeanyi (MASc ’23, mechanical and mechatronics engineering) and the Pearl Sullivan Engineering IDEAs Clinic team. The challenge was developed by three Waterloo Engineering undergraduate students, Hardit Sabharwal, Maggie Crawford and Eve Zhang, during their recent co-op term with the IDEAs Clinic. Sabharwal and Crawford helped judge the challenge. Other guest judges included Dr. Patrick Jung, Toheeb Ayinde, Karen C and Amrit Mann from GRH; Waterloo Health alum Marium Kirmani and William Nippard, co-founders of StarterHacks; Rishi Mehta and Ayaan Esmail, co-founders of Fallyx, Dr. Lili Liu, dean of Waterloo’s Faculty of Health; Dr. Robert Fleisig, an engineering professor at McMaster University; and Ivan Yuen. Sarah Bourbonniere and her volunteer group in GRH’s Hospital Elder Life Program provided the students with invaluable real-world perspectives. 

Get in touch with Silas Ifeanyi the engineering educational developer at the Pearl Sullivan Engineering IDEAs Clinic at the University of Waterloo, to find out how you can support and participate in upcoming interdisciplinary workshops designed to improve educational outcomes. 

Group of people

Members of the judging panel from left to right, top to bottom: Silas Ifeanyi, Chris Rennick, Nancy Nelson, Ivan Yuen, Simarjeet Saini, Hardit Sabharwal, Maggie Crawford, Rida Sayed, Jack Gordon , Luna Gao, Sonia Marin and Joelle Ghobrial.