Privacy and Security Issues in Assistive Technologies for Dementia

2019 ◽  
pp. 221-239
Author(s):  
Marcello Ienca ◽  
Eduard Fosch Villaronga
Keyword(s):  
Assisted Living ◽  
Ambient Assisted Living ◽  
Wearable Devices ◽  
Assistive Technologies ◽  
Policy Recommendations ◽  
Privacy And Security ◽  
Security Issues ◽  
Legal Implications ◽  
Telepresence Robots ◽  
Effective Development

The collection of a large volume and variety of physiological and behavioral data is critical for the effective development, deployment, and implementation of intelligent assistive technologies (IATs) and for the subsequent effective support of older adults with dementia. Yet it raises privacy and security issues. This chapter reviews the major privacy and security implications associated with the use of three major families of IATs for dementia: ambient assisted living systems, wearable devices, and service robotics, especially telepresence robots. After exploring a number of both category-specific and cross-categorical ethical and legal implications, the chapter proposes a list of policy recommendations with the purpose of maximizing the uptake of IATs while minimizing possible adverse effects on the privacy and security of end-users.

scholarly journals They don't care about us! Care personnel's perspectives on Ambient Assisted Living technology usage: a scenario-based quantitative study (Preprint)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Offermann-van Heek ◽  
Martina Ziefle
Keyword(s):  
Technology Acceptance ◽  
Assisted Living ◽  
Ambient Assisted Living ◽  
Assistive Technologies ◽  
Care Staff ◽  
Technology Usage ◽  
Disabled People ◽  
Data Types ◽  
Online Questionnaire ◽  
Professional Care

BACKGROUND Demographic change represents enormous burdens for the care sectors resulting in high proportions of (older) people in need of care and a lack of care staff. Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) technologies have the potential to support the bottlenecks in care supply, but are not yet in widespread use in professional care contexts. OBJECTIVE The study aims for investigating professional caregivers' AAL technology acceptance, their perception of specific technologies, data handling, perceived benefits, and barriers. In particular, the study focuses on perspectives on AAL technologies differing between care professionals working in diverse care contexts in order to examine to what extent the care context influences the acceptance of assistive technologies. METHODS An scenario-based online questionnaire (n = 170) was carried out focusing on professional care givers in medical, geriatric, and care of disabled people. The participants were asked for their perceptions concerning specific technologies, specific types of gathered data, potential benefits, and barriers of AAL technology usage. RESULTS The care context significantly impacted the evaluations of AAL technologies (F(14,220) = 2.514; P = .002). Professional caregivers of disabled people had a significantly more critical attitude towards AAL technologies than medical and geriatric caregivers: indicated by a) being the only caregiver group with rejecting evaluations of AAL technology acceptance (F(2,118) = 4.570; P = .01) and specific technologies (F(2,118) = 11.727; P = .000) applied for gathering data and b) by the comparatively lowest agreements referring to the evaluations of data types (F(2,118) = 4.073; P = .02) which are allowed to be gathered. CONCLUSIONS AAL technology acceptance is seen critical out of technology implementation reasons, especially in the care of people with disabilities. AAL technologies in care contexts have to be tailored to care professional's needs and concerns ("care about us"). The results contribute to a broader understanding of professional caregivers needs referring to specific data and technology configurations and encloses major differences concerning diverse care contexts. Integrating these findings into user group-tailored technology concepts and communication strategies will support a sustainable adoption of AAL systems in professional care contexts.

scholarly journals Context-Aware AAL Services through a 3D Sensor-Based Platform

2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandro Leone ◽  
Giovanni Diraco ◽  
Pietro Siciliano
Keyword(s):  
Assisted Living ◽  
Ambient Assisted Living ◽  
Assistive Technologies ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Modular System ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
3D Sensing ◽  
Application Requirements ◽  
Computational Resources ◽  
Traditional Approaches

The main goal of Ambient Assisted Living solutions is to provide assistive technologies and services in smart environments allowing elderly people to have high quality of life. Since 3D sensing technologies are increasingly investigated as monitoring solution able to outperform traditional approaches, in this work a noninvasive monitoring platform based on 3D sensors is presented providing a wide-range solution suitable in several assisted living scenarios. Detector nodes are managed by low-power embedded PCs in order to process 3D streams and extract postural features related to person’s activities. The feature level of details is tuned in accordance with the current context in order to save bandwidth and computational resources. The platform architecture is conceived as a modular system suitable to be integrated into third-party middleware to provide monitoring functionalities in several scenarios. The event detection capabilities were validated by using both synthetic and real datasets collected in controlled and real-home environments. Results show the soundness of the presented solution to adapt to different application requirements, by correctly detecting events related to four relevant AAL services.

scholarly journals They Don’t Care About Us! Care Personnel’s Perspectives on Ambient Assisted Living Technology Usage: Scenario-Based Survey Study

10.2196/10424 ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. e10424 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Offermann-van Heek ◽  
Martina Ziefle
Keyword(s):  
Technology Acceptance ◽  
Assisted Living ◽  
Technology Implementation ◽  
Ambient Assisted Living ◽  
Assistive Technologies ◽  
Care Staff ◽  
Survey Study ◽  
Technology Usage ◽  
Data Types ◽  
Professional Care

Background Demographic change represents enormous burdens for the care sectors, resulting in high proportions of (older) people in need of care and a lack of care staff. Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) technologies have the potential to support the bottlenecks in care supply but are not yet in widespread use in professional care contexts. Objective The objective of our study was to investigate professional caregivers’ AAL technology acceptance and their perception regarding specific technologies, data handling, perceived benefits, and barriers. In particular, this study focuses on the perspectives on AAL technologies differing between care professionals working in diverse care contexts to examine the extent to which the care context influences the acceptance of assistive technologies. Methods A Web-based survey (N=170) was carried out focusing on professional caregivers including medical, geriatric, and disabled people’s caregivers. Based on a scenario, the participants were asked for their perceptions concerning specific technologies, specific types of gathered data, and potential benefits of and barriers to AAL technology usage. Results The care context significantly impacted the evaluations of AAL technologies (F14,220=2.514; P=.002). Professional caregivers of disabled people had a significantly more critical attitude toward AAL technologies than medical and geriatric caregivers, indicated (1) by being the only caregiver group that rejected evaluations of AAL technology acceptance (F2,118=4.570; P=.01) and specific technologies (F2,118=11.727; P<.001) applied for gathering data and (2) by the comparatively lowest agreements referring to the evaluations of data types (F2,118=4.073, P=.02) that are allowed to be gathered. Conclusions AAL technology acceptance is critical because of technology implementation reasons, especially in the care of people with disabilities. AAL technologies in care contexts have to be tailored to care professional’s needs and concerns (“care about us”). The results contribute to a broader understanding of professional caregivers’ needs referring to specific data and technology configurations and enclose major differences concerning diverse care contexts. Integrating these findings into user group-tailored technology concepts and communication strategies will support a sustainable adoption of AAL systems in professional care contexts.

Reviewing Home Based Assistive Technologies

2015 ◽  
pp. 317-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Panagiotis D. Bamidis ◽  
Evdokimos Konstantinidis ◽  
Antonis S. Billis ◽  
Anastasios Sioundas
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Elderly People ◽  
Assisted Living ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Ambient Assisted Living ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Population Ageing ◽  
Assistive Technologies ◽  
European Level ◽  
Home Based

Population ageing is an unprecedented challenge for human societies, which recently is globally tackled by new technologies. In this chapter technologies tailored for use by the elderly people termed ambient assisted living and e-health are discussed. Focus is only placed on those technologies that can be adapted for home use. Emphasis is drawn both on the technical front as well as on the application front based on recent literature. The scope is to make sure the audience reaches a sufficiently broad understanding of what technology is available for home use by elderly people. Applications and research efforts spent but also funded at the European level with a clear focus on those supported by elderly trials are provided. The chapter is enriched with case studies from various projects.

scholarly journals Mobile and Wearable Sensing for the Monitoring of Diabetes-related Parameters: Systematic Review (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ciro Rodriguez-Leon ◽  
Claudia Villalonga ◽  
Manuel Munoz-Torres ◽  
Jonatan R Ruiz ◽  
Oresti Banos
Keyword(s):  
Diabetes Mellitus ◽  
Systematic Review ◽  
Web Of Science ◽  
Wearable Devices ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Health State ◽  
Eligibility Criteria ◽  
Privacy And Security ◽  
Security Issues ◽  
Care Services

BACKGROUND Diabetes mellitus is a metabolic disorder suffered by hundreds of millions of people worldwide and causing several million deaths every year. Such a dramatic scenario puts quite some pressure on administrations, care services and the scientific community to seek novel solutions that may help controlling and dealing effectively with this condition and its consequences. OBJECTIVE This study is aimed at reviewing the literature on the use of modern mobile and wearable technology for monitoring parameters that condition the development and/or evolution of diabetes mellitus. METHODS A systematic review of articles published between January 2010 and July 2020 was performed following PRISMA guidelines. Manuscripts indexed in Web of Science and SCOPUS databases were included if they involved the measurement of diabetes-related parameters, such as blood glucose level, performed physical activity or feet condition, via wearable or mobile devices. RESULTS The search yielded 1587 articles. Altogether, 26 publications met the eligibility criteria and were included in the review. Studies used predominantly wearable devices for monitoring diabetes-related parameters. The accelerometer was by far the most used sensor, followed by the glucose monitor and the heart rate monitor. Most studies applied some kind of processing to the collected data mainly consisting of statistical analysis or machine learning for activity recognition, finding associations among health outcomes, and diagnosing conditions related to diabetes. Privacy or security issues were seldom addressed, and if so, at a rather insufficient level. CONCLUSIONS The use of mobile and wearable devices for the monitoring of diabetes-related parameters shows early promise. Its development can benefit diabetes patients, healthcare professionals and researchers. To evolve this area future research must pay special attention to privacy and security issues, the use of new emerging sensor technologies, and the combination of mobile and clinical data for a holistic and seamless understanding of the patient's health state.

scholarly journals Overview of Policies, Guidelines, and Standards for Active Assisted Living Data Exchange: Thematic Analysis (Preprint)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura X. Fadrique ◽  
Dia Rahman ◽  
Hélène Vaillancourt ◽  
Paul Boissonneault ◽  
Tania Donovska ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Data Sharing ◽  
Thematic Analysis ◽  
Assisted Living ◽  
Ambient Assisted Living ◽  
Primary Concern ◽  
Privacy And Security ◽  
Health Technologies ◽  
The Creation

BACKGROUND A primary concern for governments and health care systems is the rapid growth of the aging population. To provide a better quality of life for the elderly, researchers have explored the use of wearables, sensors, actuators, and mobile health technologies. The term AAL can be referred to as active assisted living or ambient assisted living, with both sometimes used interchangeably. AAL technologies describes systems designed to improve the quality of life, aid in independence, and create healthier lifestyles for those who need assistance at any stage of their lives. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to understand the standards and policy guidelines that companies use in the creation of AAL technologies and to highlight the gap between available technologies, standards, and policies and what should be available for use. METHODS A literature review was conducted to identify critical standards and frameworks related to AAL. Interviews with 15 different stakeholders across Canada were carried out to complement this review. The results from interviews were coded using a thematic analysis and then presented in two workshops about standards, policies, and governance to identify future steps and opportunities regarding AAL. RESULTS Our study showed that the base technology, standards, and policies necessary for the creation of AAL technology are not the primary problem causing disparity between existing and accessible technologies; instead nontechnical issues and integration between existing technologies present the most significant issue. A total of five themes have been identified for further analysis: (1) end user and purpose; (2) accessibility; (3) interoperability; (4) data sharing; and (5) privacy and security. CONCLUSIONS Interoperability is currently the biggest challenge for the future of data sharing related to AAL technology. Additionally, the majority of stakeholders consider privacy and security to be the main concerns related to data sharing in the AAL scope. Further research is necessary to explore each identified gap in detail.

scholarly journals Overview of Policies, Guidelines, and Standards for Active Assisted Living Data Exchange: Thematic Analysis

10.2196/15923 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
pp. e15923 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura X Fadrique ◽  
Dia Rahman ◽  
Hélène Vaillancourt ◽  
Paul Boissonneault ◽  
Tania Donovska ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Data Sharing ◽  
Thematic Analysis ◽  
Assisted Living ◽  
Ambient Assisted Living ◽  
Primary Concern ◽  
Privacy And Security ◽  
Health Technologies ◽  
The Creation

Background A primary concern for governments and health care systems is the rapid growth of the aging population. To provide a better quality of life for the elderly, researchers have explored the use of wearables, sensors, actuators, and mobile health technologies. The term AAL can be referred to as active assisted living or ambient assisted living, with both sometimes used interchangeably. AAL technologies describes systems designed to improve the quality of life, aid in independence, and create healthier lifestyles for those who need assistance at any stage of their lives. Objective The aim of this study was to understand the standards and policy guidelines that companies use in the creation of AAL technologies and to highlight the gap between available technologies, standards, and policies and what should be available for use. Methods A literature review was conducted to identify critical standards and frameworks related to AAL. Interviews with 15 different stakeholders across Canada were carried out to complement this review. The results from interviews were coded using a thematic analysis and then presented in two workshops about standards, policies, and governance to identify future steps and opportunities regarding AAL. Results Our study showed that the base technology, standards, and policies necessary for the creation of AAL technology are not the primary problem causing disparity between existing and accessible technologies; instead nontechnical issues and integration between existing technologies present the most significant issue. A total of five themes have been identified for further analysis: (1) end user and purpose; (2) accessibility; (3) interoperability; (4) data sharing; and (5) privacy and security. Conclusions Interoperability is currently the biggest challenge for the future of data sharing related to AAL technology. Additionally, the majority of stakeholders consider privacy and security to be the main concerns related to data sharing in the AAL scope. Further research is necessary to explore each identified gap in detail.

scholarly journals A Survey on Internet of Things and Cloud Computing for Healthcare

Electronics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (7) ◽  
pp. 768 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Minh Dang ◽  
Md. Jalil Piran ◽  
Dongil Han ◽  
Kyungbok Min ◽  
Hyeonjoon Moon
Keyword(s):  
Cloud Computing ◽  
Internet Of Things ◽  
Data Storage ◽  
Assisted Living ◽  
Data Exchange ◽  
Fog Computing ◽  
Ambient Assisted Living ◽  
Healthcare Industry ◽  
Healthcare Applications ◽  
Privacy And Security

The fast development of the Internet of Things (IoT) technology in recent years has supported connections of numerous smart things along with sensors and established seamless data exchange between them, so it leads to a stringy requirement for data analysis and data storage platform such as cloud computing and fog computing. Healthcare is one of the application domains in IoT that draws enormous interest from industry, the research community, and the public sector. The development of IoT and cloud computing is improving patient safety, staff satisfaction, and operational efficiency in the medical industry. This survey is conducted to analyze the latest IoT components, applications, and market trends of IoT in healthcare, as well as study current development in IoT and cloud computing-based healthcare applications since 2015. We also consider how promising technologies such as cloud computing, ambient assisted living, big data, and wearables are being applied in the healthcare industry and discover various IoT, e-health regulations and policies worldwide to determine how they assist the sustainable development of IoT and cloud computing in the healthcare industry. Moreover, an in-depth review of IoT privacy and security issues, including potential threats, attack types, and security setups from a healthcare viewpoint is conducted. Finally, this paper analyzes previous well-known security models to deal with security risks and provides trends, highlighted opportunities, and challenges for the IoT-based healthcare future development.

scholarly journals What Characterizes Safety of Ambient Assisted Living Technologies?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kerstin Denecke
Keyword(s):  
Assisted Living ◽  
Ambient Assisted Living ◽  
Sensor Data ◽  
Physical And Mental Health ◽  
System Safety ◽  
Research Issues ◽  
Security Issues ◽  
Individual Privacy ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Individual

Ambient assisted living (AAL) technologies aim at increasing an individual’s safety at home by early recognizing risks or events that might otherwise harm the individual. A clear definition of safety in the context of AAL is still missing and facets of safety still have to be shaped. The objective of this paper is to characterize the facets of AAL-related safety, to identify opportunities and challenges of AAL regarding safety and to identify open research issues in this context. Papers reporting aspects of AAL-related safety were selected in a literature search. Out of 395 citations retrieved, 28 studies were included in the current review. Two main facets of safety were identified: user safety and system safety. System safety concerns an AAL system’s reliability, correctness and data quality. User safety reflects impact on physical and mental health of an individual. Privacy, data safety and security issues, sensor quality and integration of sensor data, as well as technical failures of sensors and systems are reported challenges. To conclude, there is a research gap regarding methods and metrics for measuring user and system safety in the context of AAL technologies.

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