Creative ageing

A series of reports taking a critical look at ageing, and applying gerontological thinking to current debates in services for people over the age of 65

Un système pour aider les personnes âgées en cas d’urgence en se servant de réseau bénévole

Assister les personnes âgées dans les situations d’urgence représente un facteur important qui pourrait augmenter le sentiment de sécurité chez cette population. Les risques et les situations d’urgence les plus fréquentes auxquelles les personnes âgées peuvent être confrontées sont la chute, l’errance et les crises de santé. Ces risques les affectent et augmentent chez eux la peur, ce qui les rend dépendantes. Face à ces risques, les personnes âgées ont besoin des outils d’assistance qui permettent de les protéger durant les activités quotidiennes. Aujourd’hui, le bénévolat joue un rôle important dans la chaîne des moyens d’assistance pour les personnes âgées. En plus, la technologie, et en particulier l'informatique diffuse et mobile, peut être utilisée pour réduire les impacts négatifs associés au vieillissement. Cette technologie peut également être utilisée pour faciliter le travail des bénévoles en le rendant plus efficace et moins contraignant. Le bénévolat dans sa forme actuelle exige une déclaration préalable de disponibilités des bénévoles (indication d’un lieu et d’horaires précis). Cette forme d’engagement exclut des bénévoles potentiels qui souhaiteraient s’investir dans des activités de bénévolat, mais qui ne connaissent pas leurs disponibilités à l’avance. Nous proposons dans ce mémoire un système pour aider les personnes âgées dans les situations d'urgence, que nous appelons Assist-Me. L’objectif du système Assist-Me est d'améliorer la qualité de vie et d’augmenter l'indépendance et l'autonomie des personnes âgées dans leurs activités quotidiennes, puisqu’il offre une assistance rapide dans les situations d'urgence via l'intervention offerte par des bénévoles, qui, par ailleurs, peuvent alléger l'intervention non nécessaire des centres d'urgence. Assist-Me est un système intelligent ayant deux applications sur les téléphones intelligents. Ces applications peuvent partager des informations indépendamment de l’emplacement physique: une application pour les personnes âgées qui demandent de l'assistance, et une deuxième pour les bénévoles qui reçoivent les demandes d’assistance. Un contrôle centralisé des informations est assuré via un système de gestion de la situation d'urgence. Ce système est muni d’un moteur de sélection basé sur la « logique floue » qui sélectionne automatiquement les bénévoles appropriées

AGEING AND INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY: THE CASE OF MELCO IN CYPRUS

While demographic ageing is increasing rapidly, it is important to consider new approaches to support older people preserve a successful ageing and satisfy their social needs. This article is discussing the issue of demographic ageing in accordance with assistive technologies that could enable someone to maintain active ageing. A project, called MELCO (Mobile Elderly Living Community) was carried out among older Cypriots. Its purpose is to function as a safety net to vulnerable older people who are in a risk for falling into social isolation and assist them in order to maintain an active role in their social environment while at the same time is monitoring their position, the lack of any movement and falls

Use of nonintrusive sensor-based information and communication technology for real-world evidence for clinical trials in dementia

Cognitive function is an important end point of treatments in dementia clinical trials. Measuring cognitive function by standardized tests, however, is biased toward highly constrained environments (such as hospitals) in selected samples. Patient-powered real-world evidence using information and communication technology devices, including environmental and wearable sensors, may help to overcome these limitations. This position paper describes current and novel information and communication technology devices and algorithms to monitor behavior and function in people with prodromal and manifest stages of dementia continuously, and discusses clinical, technological, ethical, regulatory, and user-centered requirements for collecting real-world evidence in future randomized controlled trials. Challenges of data safety, quality, and privacy and regulatory requirements need to be addressed by future smart sensor technologies. When these requirements are satisfied, these technologies will provide access to truly user relevant outcomes and broader cohorts of participants than currently sampled in clinical trials

Designing robots with the context in mind -- One design does not fit all

Robots' visual qualities (VQs) impact people's perception of their characteristics and affect users' behaviors and attitudes toward the robot. Recent years point toward a growing need for Socially Assistive Robots (SARs) in various contexts and functions, interacting with various users. Since SAR types have functional differences, the user experience must vary by the context of use, functionality, user characteristics, and environmental conditions. Still, SAR manufacturers often design and deploy the same robotic embodiment for diverse contexts. We argue that the visual design of SARs requires a more scientific approach considering their multiple evolving roles in future society. In this work, we define four contextual layers: the domain in which the SAR exists, the physical environment, its intended users, and the robot's role. Via an online questionnaire, we collected potential users' expectations regarding the desired characteristics and visual qualities of four different SARs: a service robot for an assisted living/retirement residence facility, a medical assistant robot for a hospital environment, a COVID-19 officer robot, and a personal assistant robot for domestic use. Results indicated that users' expectations differ regarding the robot's desired characteristics and the anticipated visual qualities for each context and use case.Comment: Accepted to the 15th International Workshop on Human-Friendly Robotic

Physiological and behavior monitoring systems for smart healthcare environments: a review

Healthcare optimization has become increasingly important in the current era, where numerous challenges are posed by population ageing phenomena and the demand for higher quality of the healthcare services. The implementation of Internet of Things (IoT) in the healthcare ecosystem has been one of the best solutions to address these challenges and therefore to prevent and diagnose possible health impairments in people. The remote monitoring of environmental parameters and how they can cause or mediate any disease, and the monitoring of human daily activities and physiological parameters are among the vast applications of IoT in healthcare, which has brought extensive attention of academia and industry. Assisted and smart tailored environments are possible with the implementation of such technologies that bring personal healthcare to any individual, while living in their preferred environments. In this paper we address several requirements for the development of such environments, namely the deployment of physiological signs monitoring systems, daily activity recognition techniques, as well as indoor air quality monitoring solutions. The machine learning methods that are most used in the literature for activity recognition and body motion analysis are also referred. Furthermore, the importance of physical and cognitive training of the elderly population through the implementation of exergames and immersive environments is also addressedinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Awareness, requirements and barriers to use of Assistive Technology designed to enable independence of people suffering from Dementia (ATD)

This article is available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund. Copyright @ 2012 IOS PressThis study investigated the awareness and use of assistive technology for people with dementia. The aim of the study was to explore barriers to the uptake of, and the unmet needs for, assistive technology for dementia (ATD) The work was carried out with family carers of people with dementia because carers are often the purchasers, end users and main beneficiaries of this type of technology. Focus groups were used to explore carers’ views on ATD use, and the problems that might be addressed by ATD, in order to develop a questionnaire for dementia carers. The questionnaire was administered at Alzheimer’s Society carer support groups in South Bucks and in Hillingdon Borough (UK). None of the 16 focus group participants or the 42 respondents to the questionnaire had any personal experience of ATD. The dementia carers reported a number of concerns, problems and unmet needs that could be addressed by existing, commercially available ATD products. Some needs for new technology development were identified in the study, but the lack of awareness of ATD appears to be the most important barrier to technology adoption

Purposeful Interventions for Older Adults Post-Joint Replacement Surgery: An Evidence-Based Project

The overall focus of each of case scenarios are related to assessment or interventions that are related to Choosing Wisely Campaign items 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 10. Case scenarios were developed related to each initiative with clientele and conditions across the lifespan in various practice settings. Practice settings included school district, outpatient pediatric, primary care, skilled nursing facility, work rehabilitation, and acute care