Professor Ajay Kapoor springs from his seat, then sits down again. He stands up once more, this time moving slowly, pushing himself up with his hands on the sides of the chair as if his legs no longer have the strength to take his weight. It is a simple reminder that bodies with weakened muscles can find it hard to perform even simple actions.

As the number of people over 65 increases, with the Australian Bureau of Statistics predicting 6.4 to 6.8 million Australians in this age group by 2044-45, developing solutions to address the problems of an ageing population is becoming a priority for governments at all levels.

It is also an issue that Professor Kapoor, Dr Peter Higgins, Dr Soullis Tavrou and Kirlos Grais, from Swinburne University of Technology’s Centre for Ageing, are focusing on – aiming to provide solutions that give elderly people independence in their own homes by developing products based on the age-related weakening of the body.

Like Australia, many western nations face an increasingly ageing population, so success in this research could see patentable products created, providing a niche area for Australian manufacturers.

Professor Kapoor says his group’s approach is completely different to any other in Australia and probably the world. "As engineers we can investigate the capacity and ability of the body at a certain age and design things so that a person of that ability and age can satisfactorily perform certain functions.

"When a person has trouble standing up, for example, we will investigate what particular muscle has become weaker and how we can ensure that the chair is designed in such a way that the person can get up."

He likens the approach to having an eye test. "When I go to get a pair of glasses they don’t ask me ‘How old are you? Here are the glasses for your age.’ They check my eyesight and if it is weak I get glasses, if it isn’t I don’t.

"We won’t be designing chairs for 70-year-old people, we will be investigating what their deficiency is and designing something to overcome it," he says.

The researchers use what they call an ‘ability index’ to analyse the work the body does to perform various actions, such as moving from a sitting to a standing position. It means calculating the amount of force that a person needs to apply with their knees and their hip muscles, depending on their bodyweight and the size of their limbs.

"If the person cannot apply that much force with their hip or their knee, then we immediately know where in the design of the chair we need to make modifications. Rather than going blindly we are fine-tuning, by analysing each movement."

Using the ability index the researchers look at what is involved in a typical day – from getting up and getting dressed, to making breakfast and walking to the letterbox. They are starting to work with older people to come up with designs that address common issues.

Professor Kapoor says the basic premise is that a person’s complete day is built around his or her body, whereas the approach that has been taken in the past is to design something and then get people to see if it is useful or not.

"Say, for making a cup of coffee, we look at each step that is required, and where the body has become weak, or the ability index has dropped, we add functionality," he says.

So, for example, a simple action such as heating a saucepan of milk could involve many difficulties linked to failing eyesight, problems with perception, shakiness, difficulty applying force and so on. If seeing the object is a problem, perhaps it can be created in a different colour that can be perceived better, or if shakiness is an issue perhaps the design can be changed to a two-handled saucepan.

"It’s not that something is badly designed," he says. "It is just that it is not designed to suit the person’s ability. So, as an engineer what I’m saying is let’s find out what this person can do and then design things around that functionality," he says.

"Our aim is not to have a myriad of designs for many people, but to create solutions where there are problems that could apply to a large number of people."

The work could prove important because, as Australian Gerontology Association secretary Dr Evonne Miller says, Australia has an ageing population, but not a society or environment well set up for it.

"A number of things in terms of house design and the local environment need to be addressed," Dr Miller says. "And, of course, there are issues to do with access to healthcare and having a skilled healthcare workforce.

"An ageing population can be viewed as a positive sign, with people growing older and living longer, but as a society we are not as well set up for it as we could be."

The Swinburne group is also working on two projects with the Cooperative Research Centre for Advanced Automotive Technology (Auto CRC), investigating ways of making it easier for people to get out of cars by, for example, using a swivelling seat or strategically placed handles.

"If we know what the problems are and analyse them using very simple, well-known engineering principles, we can pinpoint where the bottlenecks are, take them away and develop very good products," Professor Kapoor says.

After working for 20 years in Britain, Professor Kapoor was recently lured to Swinburne by the prospect of working in an environment with a strong industrial base.

Working in the Faculty of Engineering and Industrial Sciences, surrounded by all the tools of the trade, he says it is very easy to take a scientific approach to addressing some of the problems of ageing. Another benefit is the cross-faculty collaboration with Professor Ken Friedman and Professor Lyndon Anderson at the Faculty of Design.

"Engineers provide the functionality of the products, and designers will enhance their market appeal."

Students are also getting involved in the projects and – perhaps surprisingly, in an area that many engineers may find mundane – they are showing a lot of interest. "The projects are very popular now with students, and if you have hundreds of students working on something 10 are likely to be very successful," Professor Kapoor says.

Although projects are already under way, when the Centre for Ageing moves to the new Swinburne Advanced Technology Centre, due for completion in 2011, facilities will be upgraded and will include an observation suite – where researchers will be able to watch people using their designs and see where modifications are needed – a virtual design suite and a product development area.