To give people the tools they need to better manage disability. In particular, we focus on the types of disability that come with growing older. The Home, Community and Institutional Environments Team (Home and Community Team in short) uses five strategies to facilitate this translational research to realize real world benefits:

1. Having a collaborative team of clinicians, technical experts, researchers and students
2. Maintaining prototyping facilities on-site
3. Using simulators to quickly, safely, and repeatably test ideas with the target population
4. Building relationships with stakeholders
5. Careful documentation in preparation of regulatory approvals

Together these strategies help our team focus on translating research findings into practical outcomes as the ultimate goal of our research. These outcomes include changes to policy and clinical practice as well as the creation of new products, in addition to the traditional focus of academic research groups on outputs such as publications and grants. A paper describing our process can be downloaded here.

The Home and Community Team is one of eleven teams at Toronto Rehab Institute.

A short intro to our team (formerly named the Technology Team):

For a more in-depth look at some of out projects we work on and why, watch this video of our Team Leader, Dr. Tilak Dutta: