scholarly journals ActiveAdvice – A multi-purpose platform for Ambient Assisted Living: a user experience and usability study (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diogo Abrantes ◽  
Soraia Teles ◽  
Rita Tavares de Sousa ◽  
Alberto Freitas ◽  
Pedro Vieira-Marques ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Older People ◽  
Assisted Living ◽  
Interface Design ◽  
Ambient Assisted Living ◽  
End Users ◽  
Information Architecture ◽  
World Population ◽  
Design Information ◽  
Usability Tests

BACKGROUND The world population is experiencing a demographic shift, which translates into a rising proportion of older people among their inhabitants. This is slowly making way for new markets for care products and services to open. The desire of older people to maintain their independence, while remaining at home, boosted the development of Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) solutions, which can assist them in a variety of ways, in line with their needs when growing older. OBJECTIVE The lack of dissemination of the area, paired with an absence of user-centered and participatory design approaches in these products' development, sided by the low level of adoption of technology by older adults, hinders the uptake of these solutions. The ActiveAdvice platform aims to deliver a web environment for older adults and their relatives, AAL business representatives, as well as governments and municipalities involved in ageing issues across Europe, offering a holistic market overview of AAL products and services, and combining it with a group of valuable functionalities. METHODS Usability tests were performed on the developed platform among a section of its identified end users, in order to evaluate the level of interest, feasibility and usability. The general goal was ultimately to identify the extent to which the interface facilitated a user's ability and motivation to navigate the platform. Therefore, the tests aimed to analyze the usability and attractiveness of the web interface design, information flow, and information architecture by resourcing to the collection of both objective and subjective measures. These would include pre and post-test surveys, along with a series of think-aloud tasks to be performed within the platform. RESULTS Outcomes clarified that the platform's functionalities are mostly aligned with the needs and expectations of the selected end users, as they are actually interested in using it, provided the interaction is simple and familiar. The tests still advocate for an improved design at some points and better disclosure of information, although task completion rates were high, and participants had a satisfying experience when navigating the platform, mostly brought by the recognition of a sense of purpose. CONCLUSIONS The AAL field could definitely benefit from more tools of knowledge and promulgation, so there is a need to create a functional platform which is to be used not only by older adults but also caretakers, business owners and governmental employees. Not only that, but simultaneously being responsible for disseminating the importance of AAL, available solutions, and how they can improve one's quality of life. It can be challenging, but the findings enlightened us on a few peculiarities on interface design, information architecture, user needs and preferred functionalities, which should be applied on future developments of similar platforms with related services.

scholarly journals Older Adults’ Loneliness, Social Isolation, and Physical Information and Communication Technology in the Era of Ambient Assisted Living: A Systematic Literature Review (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rita Latikka ◽  
Rosana Rubio-Hernández ◽  
Elena Simona Lohan ◽  
Juho Rantala ◽  
Fernando Nieto Fernández ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Social Isolation ◽  
Information And Communication Technology ◽  
Communication Technology ◽  
Systematic Literature Review ◽  
Assisted Living ◽  
Ambient Assisted Living ◽  
Smart Homes ◽  
Information And Communication

BACKGROUND Loneliness and social isolation can have severe effects on human health and well-being. Partial solutions to combat these circumstances in demographically aging societies have been sought from the field of information and communication technology (ICT). OBJECTIVE This systematic literature review investigates the research conducted on older adults’ loneliness and social isolation, and physical ICTs, namely robots, wearables, and smart homes, in the era of ambient assisted living (AAL). The aim is to gain insight into how technology can help overcome loneliness and social isolation other than by fostering social communication with people and what the main open-ended challenges according to the reviewed studies are. METHODS The data were collected from 7 bibliographic databases. A preliminary search resulted in 1271 entries that were screened based on predefined inclusion criteria. The characteristics of the selected studies were coded, and the results were summarized to answer our research questions. RESULTS The final data set consisted of 23 empirical studies. We found out that ICT solutions such as smart homes can help detect and predict loneliness and social isolation, and technologies such as robotic pets and some other social robots can help alleviate loneliness to some extent. The main open-ended challenges across studies relate to the need for more robust study samples and study designs. Further, the reviewed studies report technology- and topic-specific open-ended challenges. CONCLUSIONS Technology can help assess older adults’ loneliness and social isolation, and alleviate loneliness without direct interaction with other people. The results are highly relevant in the COVID-19 era, where various social restrictions have been introduced all over the world, and the amount of research literature in this regard has increased recently.

The UniversAAL Platform for AAL (Ambient Assisted Living)

2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 301-319 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erina Ferro ◽  
Michele Girolami ◽  
Dario Salvi ◽  
Christopher Mayer ◽  
Joe Gorman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Assisted Living ◽  
Ambient Assisted Living ◽  
Community Support ◽  
End Users ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Funded Research ◽  
Open Platform ◽  
Widespread Adoption ◽  
Development Support

AbstractThis article describes the UniversAAL platform, an open platform intended to facilitate the development, distribution, and deployment of technological solutions for Ambient assisted living (AAL). The platform is intended to benefit end users (i.e., assisted persons, their families, and caregivers), authorities with responsibility for AAL, and organizations involved in the development and deployment of AAL services. It consists of an extensive set of resources (some are software and some are models/architectures) aimed at these different groups. The resources are classified into three main groups: runtime support, development support, and community support. The article presents the benefits that can be expected from the widespread adoption of the platform. The article also describes progress on prototype implementations of some of the software resources, and the results of initial evaluations of the platform. The work is partially based on results from earlier European Union-funded research projects in the area.

An Ambient Assisted Living platform for supporting aging in place of pre-frail and frail older adults: Rationale, HomeAssist plaform, quasi-experimental design, and baseline characteristics. (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
helene sauzeon ◽  
Arlette Edjolo ◽  
Hélène Amieva ◽  
Charles Consel ◽  
Karine Pérès
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Assisted Living ◽  
Independent Living ◽  
Aging In Place ◽  
Ambient Assisted Living ◽  
Large Set ◽  
Everyday Functioning ◽  
Frail Older Adults ◽  
Outcomes Measures ◽  
Quasi Experimental

UNSTRUCTURED Background: Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) technology is expected as a promising way for prolonging the aging in place. Very few evidence-based results are provided support to its real value, notably for frail older adults who have high risk of autonomy loss and of entering in nursing home. Objective: HomeAssist (HA) is a human-centered AAL platform offering a large set of applications for three main age-related need domains (Activities of Daily Living, Safety and Social participation), relying on a basic set of entities (sensors, actuators...). The HA intervention involves monitoring as well as assistive services to support independent living at home. The primary outcomes measures are related to aging in place in terms of effectiveness (institutionalization and hospitalization rates) and efficiency (everyday functioning indices). Secondary outcomes measures include indices of frailty, cognitive functioning, and psychosocial health of participants and their caregivers. Every 6 months, user experience and attitudes towards HA are also collected in equipped participants. Concomitantly, HA usages are collected. Methods: A study assessing the HA efficacy has been designed and is now conducted with 131 older adults aged 81.9 (±6.0) years (from autonomous to frail) who lived alone. The study design is quasi-experimental with a duration of 12 months optionally extensible to 24 months. It includes equipped participants, matched with non-equipped participants (n= 474). Follow-up assessments occurred at 0, 12 and 24 months. Results: The expected results are to inform the AAL value for independent living, but also to yield informed analysis on AAL usages and adoption in frail older individuals.

Instrumenting the eHome and Preparing Elderly Pilots

2015 ◽  
pp. 335-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Panagiotis E. Antoniou ◽  
Evdokimos Konstantinidis ◽  
Antonis S. Billis ◽  
Giorgos Bamparopoulos ◽  
Marianna S. Tsatali ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Assisted Living ◽  
Healthcare Costs ◽  
Healthy Lifestyle ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Ambient Assisted Living ◽  
Daily Activities ◽  
World Population ◽  
Methodological Framework ◽  
Current Trends ◽  
First World

In this chapter the lessons learnt from the build-up and integration of the USEFIL are demonstrated. First an introduction to Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) platforms, the infrastructure for eHomes of any purpose eHome is presented, in the context of their emergence as a viable way for managing healthcare costs in an aging first world population. Then technical and sustainability issues that are present after several years of maturation are touched upon. The USEFIL project's aim at an AAL platform that utilizes low cost “off-the-shelf” technologies in order to develop immediately applicable services, to assist elderly people in maintaining an independent, healthy lifestyle and program of daily activities is then briefly discussed. Afterwards, the methodological framework as well as principal results of the preparation and running of the pre-piloting phase of that platform are presented. Closing, current trends are explored in conjunction with future directions as triggered by this project in the context of cognitive impaired elderly support.

Combining Artificial Intelligence and NetMedicine for Ambient Assisted Living

2020 ◽  
pp. 1652-1666
Author(s):  
Paolo Sernani ◽  
Andrea Claudi ◽  
Aldo Franco Dragoni
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Assisted Living ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Intelligent System ◽  
Ambient Assisted Living ◽  
World Population ◽  
Distributed Sensor ◽  
Distributed Sensor Network ◽  
Multi Agent ◽  
Analyse Data

World population is shifting towards older ages: according to recent estimates there will be 1.5 billion people over 65 years old in 2050. Local governments, international institutions, care organizations and industry are fostering the research community to find solutions to face the unprecedented challenges raised by population ageing. A combination of Artificial Intelligence and NetMedicine could be ideal to face these challenges: they provide the means to develop an intelligent system and simultaneously to distribute it over a network, allowing the communication over the internet, if needed. Hence, the authors present a Multi-Agent Architecture for Ambient Assisted Living (AAL): it is the model for a system to manage a distributed sensor network composed by ambient and biometric sensors. The system should analyse data and pro-actively decide to trigger alarms if anomalies are detected. The authors tested the architecture implementing a prototypical Multi-Agent System (MAS), based on Belief-Desire-Intention (BDI) paradigm: the Virtual Carer.

Bridging the gap between technology and older adults: insights from a collaborative workshop on R&D methodologies for ambient assisted living solutions

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 195-207
Author(s):  
Soraia Teles ◽  
Rita Tavares de Sousa ◽  
Diogo Abrantes ◽  
Diotima Bertel ◽  
Ana Ferreira ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Assisted Living ◽  
Ambient Assisted Living

Combining Artificial Intelligence and NetMedicine for Ambient Assisted Living

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 62-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paolo Sernani ◽  
Andrea Claudi ◽  
Aldo Franco Dragoni
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Assisted Living ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Intelligent System ◽  
Ambient Assisted Living ◽  
World Population ◽  
Distributed Sensor ◽  
Distributed Sensor Network ◽  
Multi Agent ◽  
Analyse Data

World population is shifting towards older ages: according to recent estimates there will be 1.5 billion people over 65 years old in 2050. Local governments, international institutions, care organizations and industry are fostering the research community to find solutions to face the unprecedented challenges raised by population ageing. A combination of Artificial Intelligence and NetMedicine could be ideal to face these challenges: they provide the means to develop an intelligent system and simultaneously to distribute it over a network, allowing the communication over the internet, if needed. Hence, the authors present a Multi-Agent Architecture for Ambient Assisted Living (AAL): it is the model for a system to manage a distributed sensor network composed by ambient and biometric sensors. The system should analyse data and pro-actively decide to trigger alarms if anomalies are detected. The authors tested the architecture implementing a prototypical Multi-Agent System (MAS), based on Belief-Desire-Intention (BDI) paradigm: the Virtual Carer.

scholarly journals Serious Motion-Based Exercise Games for Older Adults: Evaluation of Usability, Performance, and Pain Mitigation

10.2196/14182 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. e14182
Author(s):  
Philipp Brauner ◽  
Martina Ziefle
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Assisted Living ◽  
Independent Living ◽  
Serious Games ◽  
Health Care Systems ◽  
Ambient Assisted Living ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Demographic Shift ◽  
Performance Effect

Background Many societies are facing demographic changes that challenge the viability of health and welfare systems. Serious games for health care and ambient assisted living (AAL) offer health benefits and support for older adults and may mitigate some of the negative effects of the demographic shift. Objective This study aimed to examine the acceptance of serious games to promote physical health in AAL environments. Since AAL environments are designed specifically to support independent living in older adults, we studied the relationship among age and user diversity, performance in the game, and overall usability and acceptance evaluation. Methods We developed a motion-based serious exercise game for prototypical AAL environments. In two evaluations, outside (n=71) and within (n=64) the AAL environment, we investigated the influence of age, gender, self-efficacy in interacting with technology, need for achievement on performance, effect of the game, usability evaluation of the game, and overall acceptance. Results Both games were evaluated as easy to use and fun to play. Both game interventions had a strong pain-mitigating effect in older adults (game 1: −55%, P=.002; game 2: −66%, P=.01). Conclusions Serious exercise games outside and inside AAL environments can contribute to individuals’ health and well-being and to the stability of health care systems.

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