 Hello, I'm Sheila Pease, Professor of Social Gerontology at the Open University. Gerontology is a study of human ageing and I've been doing research with Loughborough University's Design School about transitions in kitchen living and I've come today to meet with 83-year-old Joan Herring who's going to tell me about some changes she's had made to her kitchen. Reaching, bending, sound and vision are all issues for people in and around the kitchen. Well Joan, tell us what you've had done here. Let's start in the utility room and then I can work backwards and show you what I've done out here. Joan has done a number of things to help her. She had the door taken away from her utility room to create space, the cupboards lowered and non-slip flooring put in. Easy to use taps were put in the kitchen and higher work surfaces for someone like her who is tall. However, there are still issues with windows above the sink that are difficult to reach and clean, a switch that controls the ventilator above the cooker being far too high, as well as ceiling lights where bulbs are difficult to reach. There are good and bad points to work around. Understanding more about how people interact with their environment as they age is the basis of this project. The transitions in kitchen living study deliberately works with people currently in their 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s living in a variety of housing. Research that we've been doing about the future technology within the kitchen has shown us that at the moment older people have an attitude that's interested in things that shut down in the kitchen, the electricity, the gas, other sources of energy, rather more so than the fridge that might tell them when things are going off. We are an aging population and later life living is something that affects us all.