The Hof University of Applied Sciences is creating an innovative test and demonstration laboratory with an adjoining training area as part of its “Innovative Healthcare” degree program at the Kronach site. In an interactive and multimodular world of experience, students will in future be introduced to a wide range of topics relating to living and working – particularly in the context of care situations – and thus strengthen their professional skills.
The “WohnXLab” – the name of the new laboratory at Kronach’s Lucas Cranach Campus (Kulmbacher Str. 11) – is intended to offer students an innovative learning environment. There, they will be able to directly experience the everyday challenges of physically or mentally impaired people, as well as caregivers.
In this way, the needs and requirements of these groups of people are communicated in an application-oriented manner. At the same time, aids, technologies and digital applications are tried out directly and in practical scenarios in this lab and tested for their individual suitability.”
Prof. Dr. Gerald Schmola, Dean Faculty INWISS
Age becomes tangible
In the laboratory itself, a wide variety of issues are addressed and answered: for example, students can experience the limitations of older citizens in their own bodies using age simulation suits. The topics of hearing loss and visual impairment are also made tangible on site, and students learn how caregivers can be supportive. The focus is also on fundamental questions: “What should the layout and equipment of a bathroom, bedroom or kitchen look like so that a person in a wheelchair or with a walker can move around freely without assistance? Or what must a medicine dosette look like so that a person with haptic and/or visual impairments can use it independently? These and many other topics can be addressed in the new laboratory,” explains Prof. Dr. Schmola. Assistance systems that support everyday life will also be tested on site in the future.
Cooperation with Chemnitz as a model
The WohnXLab is based on the existing WohnXperium project in Chemnitz. The development association of the same name has also taken over the development and implementation of the project for the Kronach Campus.
