scholarly journals Ambient Assisted Living as Support for Aging in Place: Quantitative Users’ Acceptance Study on Ultrasonic Whistles (Preprint)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Biermann ◽  
Julia Offermann-van Heek ◽  
Simon Himmel ◽  
Martina Ziefle
Keyword(s):  
Home Care ◽  
Assisted Living ◽  
Emergency Service ◽  
Aging In Place ◽  
Ambient Assisted Living ◽  
Minor Role ◽  
Living Room ◽  
Home Automation ◽  
Skilled Workers ◽  
Care Needs

BACKGROUND Given the fact of an aging society, new supply measures and living concepts are needed, especially as health impairments along with care dependency increase with age. As many elderly people wish to stay at home for as long as possible, ambient assisted living (AAL) represents a support for aging in place. OBJECTIVE AAL combines medical and care technology within living environments and is, therefore, a promising approach to cope with demographic change in terms of fast-growing care needs and fewer skilled workers. Ultrasonic whistles represent one innovative technical possibility for such supportive housing solutions. Central fields of application are home automation, emergency service, and positioning. As AAL technologies affect sensitive areas of life, it is of great interest under which conditions they are accepted or rejected, taking individual user requirements into account. Hence, the aim of this study was to investigate users’ perception and evaluation of ultrasonic whistles. METHODS In this study, we examined the acceptance of ultrasonic whistles in home care by function and room using a Web-based questionnaire. Besides an evaluation of the overall usefulness, we focused on the intention to use ultrasonic whistles; 270 participants assessed home automation, emergency service, and positioning as specific functions of ultrasonic whistles. Furthermore, bathroom, bedroom, and living room were evaluated as specific usage locations (rooms). With regard to the user’s perspective, the focus was set on age and attitudes toward aging of care receivers. RESULTS This study revealed a significant influence of function (F2,269=60.444; P<.001), room (F2,269=41.388; P<.001), and the interaction of function and room (F4,269=8.701; P<.001) on the acceptance of ultrasonic whistles. The use of emergency services within the bathroom represented the most accepted alternative, whereas positioning within the living room received the comparably lowest evaluations. Although user diversity played a minor role for acceptance overall, the assessment of single applications differed among user groups, particularly with regard to age differences (F20,500=1.988; P<.01) in the evaluation of specific installation options such as automated doors. CONCLUSIONS The study revealed profound insights into the user-centered assessment of ultrasonic whistles in home care and discovered function and room as influencing acceptance parameters. Concerning user characteristics, age, and attitude toward aging partly affected these evaluations, forming the basis for and showing the importance of further investigations in this context.

scholarly journals GATEWAY ARCHITECTURES FOR HOME CARE APPLICATIONS USING WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS

2011 ◽  
pp. 367-372
Author(s):  
Axel Sikora ◽  
Nathan Braun ◽  
Steffen Jaeckel ◽  
Daniel Jaeckle
Keyword(s):  
Home Care ◽  
Assisted Living ◽  
Ambient Assisted Living ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Network Size ◽  
Energy Budgets ◽  
Integrated Network ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
Communication Flow

Home Care Applications and Ambient Assisted Living become increasingly attractive. This is caused as well by market pull, as the number of elderly people grows monotonously in highly-developed countries, as well as by technology push, as technological advances and attractive products pave the way to economically advantageous offerings. However, a significant number of challenges remain for real-life applications. Those include the lack of sufficiently standardized and interoperable solutions and thus, the necessity of gateways for integrated solutions, restrictions of the energy budgets, and scalability of solutions with regard to cost and network size. This paper presents the experience from the inCASA project (Integrated Network for Completely Assisted Senior Citizen’s Autonomy), where architectures for heterogeneous physical and logical communication flow are examined.

scholarly journals Clinical Process in Blockchain for Patient Security in Home Care

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-47
Author(s):  
David Mendes ◽  
Hugo Galvão ◽  
Margarida Eiras ◽  
Manuel Lopes
Keyword(s):  
Information Systems ◽  
Home Care ◽  
Assisted Living ◽  
Data Privacy ◽  
Ambient Assisted Living ◽  
Hospital Information Systems ◽  
Clinical Process ◽  
Blockchain Technology ◽  
Living Environments

 We explain how a solution for data privacy, and specifically for cognitive security, can be enforced and guaranteed using blockchain technology in SAAL (Smart Ambient Assisted Living) environments. Using our proposal the access to a patient’s clinical process is secure for the adequate interested and authorized parties while resist tampering and ransomware attacks that have recently plagued the HIS (Hospital Information Systems) in various countries.Journal of the Institute of Engineering, 2017, 13(1): 37-47

Ambient Assisted Living Systems: The Scope of Research and Development

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 21
Author(s):  
Ashish D Patel ◽  
Jigarkumar H. Shah
Keyword(s):  
Assisted Living ◽  
Independent Living ◽  
Intelligent Systems ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Ambient Assisted Living ◽  
Smart Devices ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
Aged Population ◽  
The People ◽  
Living Person

The aged population of the world is increasing by a large factor due to the availability of medical and other facilities. As the number grows rapidly, requirements of this segment of age (65+) are increasing rapidly as well as the percentage of aged persons living alone is also increasing with the same rate due to the inevitable socio-economic changes. This situation demands the solution of many problems like loneliness, chronic conditions, social interaction, transportation, day-to-day life and many more for independent living person. A large part of aged population may not be able to interact directly with new technologies. This sought some serious development towards the use of intelligent systems i.e. smart devices which helps the people with their inability to use the available as well future solutions. Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) is the answer to these problems. In this paper, issues related to AAL systems are studied. Study of challenges and limitations of this comparatively new field will help the designers to remove the barriers of AAL systems.

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