The effects of playing Nintendo Wii on depression, sense of belonging and social support in Australian aged care residents: A protocol study of a mixed methods intervention trial

Background: The proportion of people aged 65 or older is the fastest growing age group worldwide. Older adults in aged care facilities have higher levels of depression, and lower levels of social support and sense of belonging compared with older adults living in the community. Research has begun to assess the effectiveness of interventions to improve the mental health of residents and has found both cognitive and physical benefits of video game playing. The benefits of playing these games in a group may also lead to greater social interaction and decreased loneliness. The current study aims to investigate an intervention program designed to foster relationships among older adults in care based on shared interests. Residents will be assessed on the effectiveness of a 6 week program of playing Wii bowling in comparison to a control group. Method/Design: Participants will be allocated to the intervention (Wii bowling) or the control group based on their place of residence. Participants in the intervention group will be invited to participate in Wii bowling twice weekly, with up to three other residents for a period of 6 weeks. Residents in both conditions will be assessed for depression, social support, sense of belonging, and current self-rated mood at pre-intervention (0 weeks), post-intervention (6 weeks), and at 2-month follow up (14 weeks). Qualitative data on social interaction between group members will also be collected at weeks 1, 3, and 6. Both groups will receive a Wii console after week 6 to establish if residents and staff engage with the Wii without intervention. Discussion: The Wii provides a user friendly platform for older adults to use video games, and it incorporates both social and competitive aspects in the game play. Existing research has not extensively investigated the social aspects of using this type of technology with older adults. If found to be effective, incorporating Wii games into an activity schedule may benefit the mental health of older adults living in care by establishing an intervention that is fun, economical, and easy to use. Trial Registry: Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry: ACTRN1261400044567

Usability of a telehealth solution based on TV interaction for the elderly: the VITASENIOR-MT case study

Remote monitoring of biometric data in the elderly population is an important asset for improving the quality of life and level of independence of elderly people living alone. However, the design and implementation of health technological solutions often disregard the elderly physiological and psychological abilities, leading to low adoption of these technologies. We evaluate the usability of a remote patient monitoring solution, VITASENIOR-MT, which is based on the interaction with a television set. Twenty senior participants (over 64 years) and a control group of 20 participants underwent systematic tests with the health platform and assessed its usability through several questionnaires. Elderly participants scored high on the usability of the platform, very close to the evaluation of the control group. Sensory, motor and cognitive limitations were the issues that most contributed to the difference in usability assessment between the elderly group and the control group. The solution showed high usability and acceptance regardless of age, digital literacy, education and impairments (sensory, motor and cognitive), which shows its effective viability for use and implementation as a consumer product in the senior market.This work has been financially supported by the Portuguese foundation for science and technology (FCT) and European funds through Project VITASENIOR-MT with grant CENTRO-01-0145-FEDER-023659.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Design of a Predictive Scheduling System to Improve Assisted Living Services for Elders

International audienceAs the number of older adults increases, and with it the demand for dedicated care, geriatric residences face a shortage of caregivers, who themselves experience work overload, stress and burden. We conducted a long-term field study in three geriatric residences to understand the work conditions of caregivers with the aim of developing technologies to assist them in their work and help them deal with their burden. From this study we obtained relevant requirements and insights of design that were used to design, implement and evaluate two prototypes for supporting caregivers' tasks (e.g. electronic recording and automatic notifications), in order to validate the feasibility of their implementation in-situ and the technical requirements. The evaluation in-situ of the prototypes was conducted for a period of four weeks. The results of the evaluation, together with the data collected from six months of use, motivated the design of a predictive schedule. Such design was iteratively improved and evaluated in participative sessions with caregivers. PRESENCE, the predictive schedule we propose, triggers real-time alerts of risky situations (e.g. falls, entering off-limits areas such as the infirmary or the kitchen) and, informs caregivers of routine tasks that need to be performed (e.g. medication administration, diaper change, etc.). Moreover, PRESENCE helps caregivers to record caring tasks (such as diaper changes or medication) and wellbeing assessments (such as the mood), which are difficult to automatize. This facilitates caregiver's shift handover, and can help to train new caregivers by suggesting routine tasks and by sending reminders and timely information about the residents. It can be seen as a tool to reduce the workload of caregivers and medical staff. Instead of trying to substitute the caregiver with an automatic caring system, as proposed by others, we propose the design of our predictive schedule system that blends caregiver's assessments and measurements from sensors. We show the feasibility of predicting caregiver's tasks and a formative evaluation with caregivers that provides preliminary evidence of its utility

IoT based Health Care System for Cholera Infection

The healthcare is a significant issue which is concerned with every human being. The hitch which exists now days is lack of time. Some diseases are reparative, and some are fatal in nature. The proposed paper deals with Cholera which is an infection of the small intestine. Cholera infection could be sewage, and its cure in the form of medicines is available. In our proposed system, the user will enter some parameters to diagnose disease. The parameters entered by the user should be stored in a cloud database. These entered parameters will be analyzed by a doctor to diagnose the level of disease. The information presented by the user will be secured since it is protected through authorization. Unauthorized users will not be able to access information stored in a cloud database

Progress in ambient assisted systems for independent living by the elderly

One of the challenges of the ageing population in many countries is the efficient delivery of health and care services, which is further complicated by the increase in neurological conditions among the elderly due to rising life expectancy. Personal care of the elderly is of concern to their relatives, in case they are alone in their homes and unforeseen circumstances occur, affecting their wellbeing. The alternative; i.e. care in nursing homes or hospitals is costly and increases further if specialized care is mobilized to patients’ place of residence. Enabling technologies for independent living by the elderly such as the ambient assisted living systems (AALS) are seen as essential to enhancing care in a cost-effective manner. In light of significant advances in telecommunication, computing and sensor miniaturization, as well as the ubiquity of mobile and connected devices embodying the concept of the Internet of Things (IoT), end-to-end solutions for ambient assisted living have become a reality. The premise of such applications is the continuous and most often real-time monitoring of the environment and occupant behavior using an event-driven intelligent system, thereby providing a facility for monitoring and assessment, and triggering assistance as and when needed. As a growing area of research, it is essential to investigate the approaches for developing AALS in literature to identify current practices and directions for future research. This paper is, therefore, aimed at a comprehensive and critical review of the frameworks and sensor systems used in various ambient assisted living systems, as well as their objectives and relationships with care and clinical systems. Findings from our work suggest that most frameworks focused on activity monitoring for assessing immediate risks while the opportunities for integrating environmental factors for analytics and decision-making, in particular for the long-term care were often overlooked. The potential for wearable devices and sensors, as well as distributed storage and access (e.g. cloud) are yet to be fully appreciated. There is a distinct lack of strong supporting clinical evidence from the implemented technologies. Socio-cultural aspects such as divergence among groups, acceptability and usability of AALS were also overlooked. Future systems need to look into the issues of privacy and cyber security

Handling Emergent Conflicts in Adaptable Rule-based Sensor Networks

This thesis presents a study into conflicts that emerge amongst sensor device rules when such devices are formed into networks. It describes conflicting patterns of communication and computation that can disturb the monitoring of subjects, and lower the quality of service. Such conflicts can negatively affect the lifetimes of the devices and cause incorrect information to be reported. A novel approach to detecting and resolving conflicts is presented. The approach is considered within the context of home-based psychiatric Ambulatory Assessment (AA). Rules are considered that can be used to control the behaviours of devices in a sensor network for AA. The research provides examples of rule conflict that can be found for AA sensor networks. Sensor networks and AA are active areas of research and many questions remain open regarding collaboration amongst collections of heterogeneous devices to collect data, process information in-network, and report personalised findings. This thesis presents an investigation into reliable rule-based service provisioning for a variety of stakeholders, including care providers, patients and technicians. It contributes a collection of rules for controlling AA sensor networks. This research makes a number of contributions to the field of rule-based sensor networks, including areas of knowledge representation, heterogeneous device support, system personalisation, and in particular, system reliability. This thesis provides evidence to support the conclusion that conflicts can be detected and resolved in adaptable rule-based sensor networks

IoT-based systems for improving older adults' wellbeing: a systematic review

Physical, social and psychological wellbeing is one of the most critical issues among older adults' population. Several Internet of things (IoT)-based systems have been developed, in the last 8 years, for improving older adults' wellbeing and support an autonomous and healthy lifestyle. This paper presents the results of a systematic review, aimed to understand how IoT and IoT-based systems have been designed and used, for the past 8 years, for improving the wellbeing of older adults. A total of 173 studies 2 , published between 2010 to 2018, were selected for review. Results show that the selected studies are mainly related to healthcare and social networking applications, and involve sensors, cloud computing, fog computing and advanced communication networks.publishe

Distributed Computing and Monitoring Technologies for Older Patients

This book summarizes various approaches for the automatic detection of health threats to older patients at home living alone. The text begins by briefly describing those who would most benefit from healthcare supervision. The book then summarizes possible scenarios for monitoring an older patient at home, deriving the common functional requirements for monitoring technology. Next, the work identifies the state of the art of technological monitoring approaches that are practically applicable to geriatric patients. A survey is presented on a range of such interdisciplinary fields as smart homes, telemonitoring, ambient intelligence, ambient assisted living, gerontechnology, and aging-in-place technology. The book discusses relevant experimental studies, highlighting the application of sensor fusion, signal processing and machine learning techniques. Finally, the text discusses future challenges, offering a number of suggestions for further research directions