Research and Scholarship

This project focuses on identifying and supporting hidden caregivers within Tai Po district. The study aims to explore how social connectedness and community support can serve as vital resources to bolster their resilience and well-being during caregiving, through providing a variety of supports including escorting, home visit, and in-home respite services.

This project aims to build on the existing achievements of our collaboration with AKA over the past few years. New proposal focuses on leveraging previous achievements to explore new research questions that further show case in relating to how academic-community collaboration leveraged on bid data could enhance elderly care services.

This project evaluates the Jockey Club SO.ME.CARE Carer Support Project, a three-year social–medical collaborative intervention for high-risk older patients discharged from Tai Po and Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospitals and their family carers. Using screening-guided triage, caregivers receive risk-stratified, carer-centred interventions ranging from workshops to intensive casework and CareCher peer support. Outcomes focus on caregiving competence, caregiver health, quality of life, mental wellbeing, and reduced hospital readmissions.

Independent outdoor mobility (IOM) is vital for older adults’ quality of life but poses challenges for those with dementia. Caregivers, especially adult children in Chinese contexts, often face ambivalence when balancing safety and autonomy in IOM decisions. This study proposes a biopsychosocial model integrating Behavior Reasoning Theory and prospect theory, using a Delphi study and a randomized vignette experiment with eye-tracking. It aims to explore caregivers’ decision mechanisms and inform person-centered interventions to enhance autonomy and safety in IOM for people with dementia.

This project investigates whether home modifications reduce disability and related outcomes among older adults amid global population ageing. Addressing methodological weaknesses in prior research, it applies innovative analytic strategies to longitudinal household data from over 50,000 older adults in 13 countries, incorporating spouse/partner information to account for selection processes. Complementary Hong Kong–based analyses examine inequalities in access to home modifications by housing tenure and impacts on caregivers. Findings will inform evidence-based housing and social care policies, supporting occupational therapists, housing authorities, and governments in promoting ageing in place and reducing disability-related burdens.

The project will collaborate with Jockey Club Carer Space Projects and mainstream service providers for providing support service to EM elderly carers by which strengthening the connection between EM carers and service providers and at the same time enhancing service providers’ readiness in serving the EM carers. Besides, the project will also facilitate service providers to render accessible culturally and linguistically appropriate services to EM elderly carers.

Carers play a critical role in supporting people with cognitive impairment. However, they often experience substantial emotional, physical, and practical burdens. We adopted an innovative Carer-Centric Co-Creation (C4) Framework to develop a carer-centred, data-informed project to meet the needs of both people with cognitive impairment and their carers. A structured screening tool was employed to facilitate the holistic understanding and stratification of carer needs. A standardised workflow, intervention protocols, implementation procedures, and key performance indicators were developed to guide the implementation of the project.

This project provides in-home respite services for caregivers of homebound older adults, aiming to alleviate caregiver burden and improve overall well-being. The project involves two types of service providers: volunteers who assist caregivers of older adults with mild care needs, and substitute caregivers who provide more comprehensive support for those with moderate care needs. By tailoring services to the level of caregiving needs, we seek to address the diverse needs of this caregiving population.

Know More

This project introduces “successful caregiving” as a new paradigm for understanding the lives of family caregivers of people with dementia, moving beyond binary positive–negative views. Adopting a socio-technical perspective, it develops a multidimensional construct of successful caregiving that integrates health maintenance, psychological wellness, social engagement, and quality care provision. The study theorises how social media engagement and geographic dispersion among family members jointly shape successful caregiving, generating an integrative model to inform future research, support interventions, and the design of IT solutions for dementia care.

This project provides in-home respite services through trained volunteers, referred to as “alternative caregivers,” who temporarily assume caregiving responsibilities for older adults. This approach allows family caregivers to be relieved for several hours, offering much-needed support. The project specifically targets older adults without children or those with limited contact with their children.

The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust has initiated and funded the Jockey Club Carer Space Project (the Project) in 2023. The Project, with an approved funding of over HK$290 million, adopts a carer-centric approach to provide and connect carers to timely and appropriate services. The Project establishes carer-centric service centres in different districts to serve more than 29,000 carers and 13,000 older adults with care needs in 5 years, as well as to increase public awareness on carers needs and promote a carer-friendly community.

Know More

This project aims to develop an intelligent, robot-enabled exercise system to implement Performance-Centric Co-Creation (PC³) training for elite athletes. The system integrates a robotic exercise machine capable of intelligent isokinetic, assistive-repetition and power training; multimodal sensing for offline assessment and real-time physiological, functional and performance monitoring; and a machine learning–driven digital twin for personalised planning, adaptation and evaluation. Laboratory and field trials at HKU and HKSI will assess effectiveness in enhancing strength, power and injury prevention, thereby enabling marginal gains in world-class performance.

Know More

This project aims to develop and validate a daily-use sensing device to quantify dynamic balance and assess fall risk among older adults in Hong Kong. Artificial intelligence algorithms will be constructed to estimate individualized fall risk from sensor-derived balance parameters, supported by dedicated software and a user-friendly interface. Integrated hardware–software prototypes will be tested in homes and elderly care centres to evaluate feasibility and accuracy. The project further emphasizes dissemination, implementation support, and promotion to facilitate widespread adoption in community and institutional settings.

Hong Kong is facing a rapidly ageing population, with the number of elderly suffering from terminal illnesses increasing correspondingly. In view of the growing demand for end-of-life care services in the community, The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust has approved approximately HK$623 million to initiate and fund the “Jockey Club End-of-Life Community Care Project” (JCECC). Launched in 2016, the project aims to improve the quality of end-of-life care, enhance the capacity of service providers, as well as raise public awareness.

Know More

This project responds to Hong Kong’s rapidly ageing population by developing intelligent wearable robotics to enhance older adults’ mobility, manipulability, fall prevention and independence. Using a User-Centric Co-creation (UC³) approach, it integrates psychosocial needs assessment, kinesiology-based personalization, and hybrid soft/rigid robotic structures with embedded sensing and cooperative control. Iterative testing with older users, guided by an Impact Committee and commercialization strategy, aims to enable technology transfer, transform elderly care services, and position Hong Kong as a regional leader in gerontechnology and robotics research.

Know More