By Megumi Barclay and Isabel Doshi
Wearing safety goggles covered in Vaseline, Svea Cheng navigated a walker through a cramped kitchen, simulating the experience of an older patient with glaucoma recovering from surgery. Her tasks included making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, walking downstairs to feed her cat, and going outside to water her plants.
Cheng, a third-year medical student at the University of Pittsburgh, was participating in a unique learning experience developed for health sciences students at Pitt’s Healthy Home Lab (HHL), helping students to understand challenges facing patients as they return home.
“We just don’t get anything like this in the classroom. It was the first time that we had a role-playing experience where we were in the shoes of the patient,” Cheng said.
While a 107-year-old house may not seem like a conventional workspace, that’s the setting of HHL, where the lab’s director, Pamela Toto, and her team are conducting life-changing research, innovation and discovery. HHL is an initiative led by Pitt’s Schools of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences (SHRS) and of Public Health, Swanson School of Engineering, and community partners. Their mission is to develop new technological solutions and support services that empower individuals to live safely and independently in their homes.
The lab offers a unique a learning space and opportunity for Pitt students.
Established in the fall of 2022, HHL, now fully wheelchair accessible, is housed in a traditional family house in the Oakland neighborhood, repurposed into a demonstration home. This choice of location mirrors the housing stock that many older individuals reside in. Since its inception, HHL has conducted extensive assessments and developed numerous inventions such as Mobius, an adaptable rail system that solves the challenge of grab bar installation and is aesthetically appealing, aimed at mitigating physical hazards in residential settings.
“The whole world is aging, but we don’t have adequate resources to keep people well and independent,” said Toto, professor of occupational therapy, SHRS, with expertise in gerontology. “The Healthy Home Lab is about helping people with or without a disability to age in their communities and their homes.”
Toto works with community partners to codesign and test technologies to make the most useful products for the older adult community. She and the HHL team aims to allow the community access to these products to enhance safety and independence in homes.
“I like to say that our mission includes research, education and community,” Toto said. “We create new technology here. We improve technology that already exists. We partner with companies who are developing new technology and want to see if it works in the real world.” Then, the lab implements or deploys the technology in the community.
From its start, HHL has collaborated with different schools at Pitt, getting help from SHRS Department of Rehabilitation Science and Technology and Swanson School of Engineering for new technology designs and from SHRS occupational therapy students for furnishing the home, developing a demonstration kit of assistive devices and expanding the “home” to include an age-friendly garden. It has also opened its doors to students from other departments and programs in SHRS and the Schools of Medicine and of Nursing to study the accessibility and safety of the home.
The role-playing lesson Cheng took part in was part of a collaboration between HHL and the Pitt Vaccination and Health Connection Hub to give students the opportunity to work through an interactive case study.
On July 24, 10 third-year Pitt Med students from the Adult Outpatient Medicine clerkship participated in this case study. Amanda Casagrande, assistant professor of family medicine and one of the Hub’s medical directors, and the Hub team orchestrated the lesson as a way to bridge theoretical knowledge with practical application, to foster an integrated approach to health care education.
The case involved an 82-year-old female patient with a complex medical history, including hyperthyroidism, breast cancer in remission, hypertension, diabetes, essential tremor and glaucoma. Over two hours, the students divided into small groups in the three-story house. By role-playing as the patient trying to accomplish daily tasks, such as obtaining packages and taking a shower, they assessed the accessibility and practicality of its living spaces and furniture, considering how these factors could affect the patient's daily life and overall well-being.
They then regrouped with Toto, Casagrande and the Hub team to discuss their findings and formulate steps for the patient’s continued care. This debriefing session was crucial in translating the students’ observations into actionable strategies, reinforcing the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration in health care.
“It definitely helped with being able to empathize with what the patient goes through on a day-to-day basis,” Cheng said.