SHELDON Smart habitat for the elderly.

An insightful document concerning active and assisted living under different perspectives: Furniture and habitat, ICT solutions and Healthcare

The Impact of Digital Technologies on Public Health in Developed and Developing Countries

This open access book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 18th International Conference on String Processing and Information Retrieval, ICOST 2020, held in Hammamet, Tunisia, in June 2020.* The 17 full papers and 23 short papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 49 submissions. They cover topics such as: IoT and AI solutions for e-health; biomedical and health informatics; behavior and activity monitoring; behavior and activity monitoring; and wellbeing technology. *This conference was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic

Improving Access and Mental Health for Youth Through Virtual Models of Care

The overall objective of this research is to evaluate the use of a mobile health smartphone application (app) to improve the mental health of youth between the ages of 14–25 years, with symptoms of anxiety/depression. This project includes 115 youth who are accessing outpatient mental health services at one of three hospitals and two community agencies. The youth and care providers are using eHealth technology to enhance care. The technology uses mobile questionnaires to help promote self-assessment and track changes to support the plan of care. The technology also allows secure virtual treatment visits that youth can participate in through mobile devices. This longitudinal study uses participatory action research with mixed methods. The majority of participants identified themselves as Caucasian (66.9%). Expectedly, the demographics revealed that Anxiety Disorders and Mood Disorders were highly prevalent within the sample (71.9% and 67.5% respectively). Findings from the qualitative summary established that both staff and youth found the software and platform beneficial

The Impact of Ambient Scent Environment on Residents’ Wellness and Their Perception of Interior Environments in Long-Term Care Facilities

University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. May 2019. Major: Design, Housing and Apparel. Advisors: Abimbola Asojo, Michael Oakes. 1 computer file (PDF); xii, 205 pages.The elderly population is continuously growing, and the number of older adults living in an institutional setting has been steadily but slowly increased. Because of a higher chance of having psychological disorders among people living in institutional settings than people living in non-institutional settings, providing a supportive institutional setting to the residents is critical to enhance their wellness. The theory of supportive design suggests healthcare facilities can lower people’s stress levels via three conditions (i.e., perceived control, social support, and positive distractions). The present study builds on research on supportive design by investigating the impact of positive distractions and ambient scent environment intervention on nursing home residents' health and wellness. When considering ways to promote wellness, complementary and alternative medicine is another method that has promise. An ambient scent environment, especially, has been widely explored for its impact on people’s health status (e.g., physical and psychological health). Therefore, this study conducted a single-blind and placebo-randomized controlled study to investigate impacts of ambient scent environment, as a positive distraction, on residents’ depression levels and quality of sleep. The recruited residents (N=58) were randomly assigned into either the intervention group, which received a 1% dilution of lavender scent for two weeks nearby their bedside, or the placebo group, which received a non-scent for two weeks. Their depression levels were measured by the Geriatric Depression Scale, and their quality of sleep was measured by the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index at baseline and follow-up, which was two-weeks from the baseline. In a post-experimental interview, the residents were also asked three things they liked and wanted to improve in the living environment. Based on the t-tests, both intervention and placebo groups had improvement on depression, and only the intervention group had improvement on quality of sleep. However, further regression analyses indicated the intervention had no measurable effect on either depression or quality of sleep. The responses from the open-ended questions support the theory of supportive design in that the residents reported appreciation of and desire for perceived control, social support, and positive distraction in their living environment. Regarding the effectiveness of ambient scent environment, more controlled studies with rigorous methodology and larger samples are needed to build on the findings

Sensor fusion in smart camera networks for ambient intelligence

This short report introduces the topics of PhD research that was conducted on 2008-2013 and was defended on July 2013. The PhD thesis covers sensor fusion theory, gathers it into a framework with design rules for fusion-friendly design of vision networks, and elaborates on the rules through fusion experiments performed with four distinct applications of Ambient Intelligence

Wearable Movement Sensors for Rehabilitation: From Technology to Clinical Practice

This Special Issue shows a range of potential opportunities for the application of wearable movement sensors in motor rehabilitation. However, the papers surely do not cover the whole field of physical behavior monitoring in motor rehabilitation. Most studies in this Special Issue focused on the technical validation of wearable sensors and the development of algorithms. Clinical validation studies, studies applying wearable sensors for the monitoring of physical behavior in daily life conditions, and papers about the implementation of wearable sensors in motor rehabilitation are under-represented in this Special Issue. Studies investigating the usability and feasibility of wearable movement sensors in clinical populations were lacking. We encourage researchers to investigate the usability, acceptance, feasibility, reliability, and clinical validity of wearable sensors in clinical populations to facilitate the application of wearable movement sensors in motor rehabilitation

The Impact of Digital Technologies on Public Health in Developed and Developing Countries

This open access book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 18th International Conference on String Processing and Information Retrieval, ICOST 2020, held in Hammamet, Tunisia, in June 2020.* The 17 full papers and 23 short papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 49 submissions. They cover topics such as: IoT and AI solutions for e-health; biomedical and health informatics; behavior and activity monitoring; behavior and activity monitoring; and wellbeing technology. *This conference was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic