Dr. Noelannah Neubauer presents her research at the 2022 AGE-WELL Annual Conference in Regina, Saskatchewan
Raised in part by her grandparents, occupational therapist Dr. Noelannah Neubauer’s passion for working with older adults began in adolescence and eventually led her to AGE-WELL.
“I knew I wanted to work with older adults because of my close relationship with my grandparents – they’re my best friends,” says Dr. Neubauer.
That passion found a natural home at AGE-WELL, Canada’s technology and aging network.
“AGE-WELL is so forward-thinking. They think of ideas and solutions that other countries haven’t even brought in,” she says. “I love how they involve older adults and really create a community.”
Joining AGE-WELL as a trainee in 2015, Dr. Neubauer gained skills and knowledge needed to collaborate effectively across disciplines through the network’s world-leading EPIC (Early Professionals, Inspired Careers) program, which prepares future leaders in technology and aging. As an AGE-WELL postdoctoral award recipient at the University of Waterloo’s School of Public Health Sciences, her research focused on AgeTech, dementia care and wayfinding. One project that captured particular attention was an interactive website offering proactive strategies to reduce the risk of people living with mild dementia becoming lost.
Through AGE-WELL, Dr. Neubauer built connections across the AgeTech ecosystem, working alongside older adults, caregivers, community organizations, researchers, policymakers and industry leaders through initiatives such as the AGE-WELL Summer Institute – an intensive week of experiential learning focused on designing practical, technology-enabled solutions that support healthy aging.
Her involvement opened doors to speaking engagements, media interviews and research demonstrations at AGE-WELL’s annual conference, Canada’s premier AgeTech event. And then came a book. In 2022, Dr. Neubauer co-authored Autonomy and Independence: Aging in an Era of Technology, part of an AGE-WELL book series exploring how technology can support older adults and caregivers.
“Being surrounded by people from different disciplines, backgrounds and perspectives as a trainee enabled me to look outside the box as an occupational therapist and understand that interdisciplinary collaboration is beyond other health professionals,” reflects Dr. Neubauer.
“At the end of the day, it’s the ones with lived experience who help identify the problem and should be included in every step when it comes to their care, designing a new technology, product, or policy change.”
Dr. Neubauer had planned to pursue a traditional tenure-track path. But when she became the primary caregiver for her grandparents, now in their 80s and 90s, she chose a different career path that allowed her to stay close to home in Edmonton, where she had earned her PhD in Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Alberta.
“AGE-WELL has given me a unique experience that most occupational therapists are not exposed to.”– Dr. Noelannah Neubauer
Today, Dr. Neubauer is an Occupational Therapist System Case Manager for the Edmonton Zone with Assisted Living Alberta, where she facilitates complex hospital discharges in the Edmonton and surrounding areas—most of them involving older adults, many living with dementia, who are ready for discharge but at high risk of hospital readmission.
She assesses clients in hospital to identify the care they will need at home, often where family and social supports are limited. She then determines the home-care services, community supports, equipment, technology and home modifications needed to help them return home and live safely, following up with client visits over the next several weeks.
A self-described non-traditional occupational therapist, Dr. Neubauer says her frontline role has given her a new perspective on the health system and an opportunity to apply the collaborative, user-centred approach she developed through AGE-WELL.
“Because of the work I did with AGE-WELL, I always involve the voice of the end user in my work as a frontline clinician. It’s been the huge driving piece of AGE-WELL that has allowed them to be as successful as they are. The solutions and policies are not just driven by researchers, but by caregivers, frontline clinicians, and older adults who are living and breathing the issues,” says Dr. Neubauer.
She continues to collaborate with her former postdoctoral supervisor, Dr. Lili Liu, in Dr. Liu’s Aging and Innovation Research Program at the University of Waterloo.
Dr. Neubauer also remains actively involved with AGE-WELL as a member of its Older Adult and Caregiver Advisory Committee (OACAC), which provides strategic guidance to AGE-WELL leadership and ensures lived experience informs the network’s mission and the full breadth of its activities. In this role, she draws on her experience as a researcher, frontline clinician and family caregiver to contribute to AGE-WELL’s ongoing work.
“AGE-WELL has given me a unique experience that most occupational therapists are not exposed to. It has allowed me to think beyond the standard use of assistive technologies and helped me educate others within Assisted Living Alberta on how we can better support our clients using technologies.”
She adds, “I know AGE-WELL will only continue to add value to my career in the years to come.”