Connectivity for Healthcare and Well-Being Management: Examples from Six European Projects

Technological advances and societal changes in recent years have contributed to a shift in traditional care models and in the relationship between patients and their doctors/carers, with (in general) an increase in the patient-carer physical distance and corresponding changes in the modes of access to relevant care information by all groups. The objective of this paper is to showcase the research efforts of six projects (that the authors are currently, or have recently been, involved in), CAALYX, eCAALYX, COGKNOW, EasyLine+, I2HOME, and SHARE-it, all funded by the European Commission towards a future where citizens can take an active role into managing their own healthcare. Most importantly, sensitive groups of citizens, such as the elderly, chronically ill and those suffering from various physical and cognitive disabilities, will be able to maintain vital and feature-rich connections with their families, friends and healthcare providers, who can then respond to, and prevent, the development of adverse health conditions in those they care for in a timely manner, wherever the carers and the people cared for happen to be

Smart kitchen for Ambient Assisted Living

El envejecimiento de la población es una realidad en todos los países desarrollados. Las predicciones de crecimiento de esta población son alarmantes, planteando un reto para los servicios sociales y sanitarios. Las personas ancianas padecen diversas discapacidades que se van acentuando con la edad, siendo más propensas a sufrir accidentes domésticos, presentando problemas para realizar tareas cotidianas, etc. Esta situación conlleva a una pérdida paulatina de capacidades que en muchas ocasiones acaba con la vida autónoma de la persona. En este contexto, las Tecnologías de la Información y Comunicación (TIC) aplicadas al entorno doméstico pueden jugar un papel importante, permitiendo que las personas ancianas vivan más tiempo, de forma independiente en su propio hogar, presentando, por tanto, una alternativa a la hospitalización o institucionalización de las mismas. Este trabajo da un paso más en este sentido, presentando el diseño y desarrollo de un Ambiente Inteligente en la cocina, que ayuda a las personas ancianas y/o con discapacidad a desempeñar sus actividades de la vida diaria de una forma más fácil y sencilla. Esta tesis realiza sus principales aportaciones en dos campos: El metodológico y el tecnológico. Por un lado se presenta una metodología sistemática para extraer necesidades de colectivos específicos a fin de mejorar la información disponible por el equipo de diseño del producto, servicio o sistema. Esta metodología se basa en el estudio de la interacción Hombre-Máquina en base a los paradigmas y modelos existentes y el modelado y descripción de las capacidades del usuario en la misma utilizado el lenguaje estandarizado propuesto en la Clasificación Internacional del Funcionamiento, de la Discapacidad y de la Salud (CIF). Adicionalmente, se plantea el problema de la evaluación tecnológica, diseñando la metodología de evaluación de la tecnología con la finalidad de conocer su accesibilidad, funcionalidad y usabilidad del sistema desarrollado y aplicándola a 61 usuarios y 31 profesionales de la gerontología. Desde un punto de vista técnico, se afronta el diseño de un ambiente asistido inteligente (Ambient Assisted Living, AAL) en la cocina, planteando y definiendo la arquitectura del sistema. Esta arquitectura, basada en OSGi (Open Services Gateway initiative), oferta un sistema modular, con altas capacidades de interoperabilidad y escalabilidad. Además, se diseña e implementa una red de sensores distribuida en el entorno con el fin de obtener la mayor información posible del contexto, presentando distintos algoritmos para obtener información de alto nivel: detección de caídas o localización. Todos los dispositivos presentes en el entorno han sido modelados utilizando la taxonomía propuesta en OSGi4AmI, extendiendo la misma a los electrodomésticos más habituales de la cocina. Finalmente, se presenta el diseño e implementación de la inteligencia del sistema, que en función de la información procedente del contexto y de las capacidades del usuario da soporte a las principales actividades de la vida diaria (AVD) en la cocina

Using tablet devices to control complex home appliances

Internet of things has made connected devices and appliances widely available and tablet devices are common household items. This study focuses on technical user interface design challenges and requirements for user interface design of controlling complex home appliances with tablet devices. There is a literature review about available controlling technologies and usability heuristics related to tablet and mobile devices. An Android test application was created and tested with four test users to find out how well those heuristics work and are covered. That application was tested against the regular user interface of a dishwasher and task completion times and errors were noted down. Test users were asked to answer a questionnaire regarding the heuristics and how well the implementation performed. Tablet devices should be evaluated using regular usability heuristics, but besides them they require mobile specific heuristics, such as easy of input, screen readability and glancability, physical interaction and ergonomics and privacy and social convention taken into account. The results showed that a tablet user interface was able to outperform its regular counterpart in task completion times and in number of errors. The implementation also covered those heuristics in a more comprehensive way. But among test persons the most benefit was with users who were familiar with tablets and not with dishwashers. A test user who wasn t familiar with tablets but was with dishwashers performed tasks faster and with fewer errors with regular user interface. In conclusion a tablet user interface enabled users who were familiar with tablets to perform tasks faster and with less errors. Those users were also more satisfied with a tablet user interface than a regular one. On the other hand a test user with little experience of tablets and familiarity with dishwashers was able to perform tasks faster an with less errors with the regular user interface. A tablet user interface was able to offer extra benefits and efficiency to users, but regular user interface should be also available to satisfy users who are not familiar with mobile devices

Human-Computer/Device Interaction

Any interaction refers to the communication between two or more entities (be it abstract/conceptual or physical entity). Successful interaction is equated from the properties of each entity involved in the interaction as well as the capabilities of the interacting entities. With the diversified use and application of computers and specialized devices for specific tasks, such as biomechanical and biomedical devices, interaction design needs to further study the context of the tasks as well. Moreover, with the inclusion of embedded systems and smart devices, instead of focusing only on the hardware performance, the computer architecture needs to consider the opportunities. Especially, HCI can be improved as the current technologies are giving an opportunity for building smart interaction where the user interacts with devices implicitly and in less obtrusive way. In light of this, the design and architecture of an engineered product need to strive for making the product usable and used while making it useful to the user. And this can be achieved if interaction design is dictated by scrutinizing the user model with respects to the usability attributes in view of the context of its task as well as the platform capabilities and constraints as discussed in this chapter

What is the energy price of independent living? A review of energy consumption of AT products in inclusive smart homes

Maintaining good health and independence for as long as possible is essential for a globally ageing population and people with disabilities. Assistive Technology (AT) products are intended to enhance the functional capabilities and increase independence for elderly and individuals living with disabilities. Some of AT products are relatively low-tech devices such as glasses, grips, and crutches. The application of safety-critical products that consume comparatively large amounts of domestic energy may require additional consideration in regions where reliability of energy delivery may be an issue. A mainstream ‘smart home’ offers the owner the convenience of monitoring and controlling their domestic environment. These proprietary environmental controllers are now affordable through commercial systems such as monitoring and controlling environment controllers for instance Hive, Amazon Alexa, Echo and Siri etc. These systems are often low-voltage and do not appear to add significantly to domestic energy consumption. Individuals and families living with a cognitive or physical disability often require motorized systems that draw much more energy than monitoring systems. Whilst energy consumption relating to mainstream smart homes is well documented, energy use in daily activities among those with physical disability is less well defined. This leads to the question: “what is energy consumption and associated cost for independent living for the people with disabilities within a smart home?” To explore this question further, a literature review of smart home and specific high-energy requirement equipment was completed. Databases were chosen that provide a wide range of literature that has a focus on smart homes and AT products associated with tasks that aid manual handling and moving. A number of personas were created from information gathered from the literature review to provide an indication of the amount of energy consumed, with an indication of when spikes in demand may occur. The study concludes with the comparison of an AT smart home with a mainstream equivalent, savings in care costs and consequences of power outage for the AT homes. Areas for further research are also suggested

On the design, development and experimentation of the ASTRO assistive robot integrated in smart environments

This paper presents the full experience of designing, developing and testing ASTROMOBILE, a system composed of an enhanced robotic platform integrated in an Ambient Intelligent (AmI) infrastructure that was conceived to provide favourable independent living, improved quality of life and efficiency of care for senior citizens. The design and implementation of ASTRO robot was sustained by a multidisciplinary team in which technology developers, designers and end-user representatives collaborated using a user-centred design approach. The key point of this work is to demonstrate the general feasibility and scientific/technical effectiveness of a mobile robotic platform integrated in a smart environment and conceived to provide useful services to humans and in particular to elderly people in domestic environments. The main aspects faced in this paper are related to the design of the ASTRO’s appearance and functionalities by means of a substantial analysis of users’ requirements, the improvement of the ASTRO’s behaviour by means of a smart sensor network able to share information with the robot (Ubiquitous Robotics) and the development of advanced human robot interfaces based on natural language

Clinical Evaluation of a Telemedically Linked Intraoral Drug Delivery System

The miniaturized intraoral drug delivery system BuccalDose is composed of a replaceable cartridge which is worn in a removable prosthesis and an external base station for telemedical therapy monitoring. The system has now been tested for the first time with Parkinson\u2019s disease (PD) patients. The study evaluated the usability of the entire system, the functionality of the telemedical transmission path and the functionality of the cartridge, which uses an osmotic pumping principle to release a liquid drug formulation to the buccal mucosa. The BuccalDose system was generally considered to be easy to handle, even with movement disorders, up to a mild-moderate disease stage. In addition, the obtained in vivo release rates of the cartridges confirmed the previously achieved in vitro release behavior

'HighChest': An augmented freezer designed for smart food management and promotion of eco-efficient behaviour

This paper introduces HighChest, an innovative smart freezer designed to promote energy efficient behavior and the responsible use of food. Introducing a novel humanâmachine interface (HMI) design developed through assessment phases and a user involvement stage, HighChest is state of the art, featuring smart services that exploit embedded sensors and Internet of things functionalities, which enhance the local capabilities of the appliance. The industrial design thinking approach followed for the advanced HMI is intended to maximize the social impact of the food management service, enhancing both the user experience of the product and the userâs willingness to adopt eco- and energy-friendly behaviors. The sensor equipment realizes automatic recognition of food by learning from the users, as well as automatic localization inside the deposit space. Moreover, it provides monitoring of the applianceâs usage, avoiding temperature and humidity issues related to improper use. Experimental tests were conducted to evaluate the localization system, and the results showed 100% accuracy for weights greater or equal to 0.5 kg. Drifts due to the lid opening and prolonged usage time were also measured, to implement automatic reset corrections