3 research outputs found
What Characterizes Safety of Ambient Assisted Living Technologies?
Ambient assisted living (AAL) technologies aim at increasing an individual's safety at home by early recognizing risks or events that might otherwise harm the individual. A clear definition of safety in the context of AAL is still missing and facets of safety still have to be shaped. The objective of this paper is to characterize the facets of AAL-related safety, to identify opportunities and challenges of AAL regarding safety and to identify open research issues in this context. Papers reporting aspects of AAL-related safety were selected in a literature search. Out of 395 citations retrieved, 28 studies were included in the current review. Two main facets of safety were identified: user safety and system safety. System safety concerns an AAL system's reliability, correctness and data quality. User safety reflects impact on physical and mental health of an individual. Privacy, data safety and security issues, sensor quality and integration of sensor data, as well as technical failures of sensors and systems are reported challenges. To conclude, there is a research gap regarding methods and metrics for measuring user and system safety in the context of AAL technologies
Can telecare contribute to an independent life at home with 100? A glance to the UK and initial experiences of the German LOEWE field test on age appropriate sensor based assistance in real estate
Although telecare is a well-known concept in the UK, the situation in Germany is different. The German LOEWE project 'Field test on age appropriate sensor based assistance in real estate' enables exploration of the decision process of using the technology by the service user. This gives a valuable insight to supporting and inhibiting factors in providing telecare services in Germany. This contribution presents the methodology and findings from the initial experiences
A Mobile Healthcare Solution for Ambient Assisted Living Environments
Elderly people need regular healthcare services and, several times,
are dependent of physicians’ personal attendance. This dependence raises
several issues to elders, such as, the need to travel and mobility support.
Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) and Mobile Health (m-Health) services and
applications offer good healthcare solutions that can be used both on
indoor and in mobility environments. This dissertation presents an ambient
assisted living (AAL) solution for mobile environments.
It includes elderly biofeedback monitoring using body sensors for data
collection offering support for remote monitoring. The used sensors are
attached to the human body (such as the electrocardiogram, blood
pressure, and temperature). They collect data providing comfort, mobility,
and guaranteeing efficiency and data confidentiality. Periodic collection of
patients’ data is important to gather more accurate measurements and to
avoid common risky situations, like a physical fall may be considered
something natural in life span and it is more dangerous for senior people.
One fall can out a life in extreme cases or cause fractures, injuries, but
when it is early detected through an accelerometer, for example, it can
avoid a tragic outcome.
The presented proposal monitors elderly people, storing collected
data in a personal computer, tablet, or smartphone through Bluetooth. This
application allows an analysis of possible health condition warnings based
on the input of supporting charts, and real-time bio-signals monitoring and
is able to warn users and the caretakers. These mobile devices are also used to collect data, which allow data
storage and its possible consultation in the future. The proposed system is
evaluated, demonstrated and validated through a prototype and it is ready
for use. The watch Texas ez430-Chronos, which is capable to store
information for later analysis and the sensors Shimmer who allow the
creation of a personalized application that it is capable of measuring biosignals
of the patient in real time is described throughout this dissertation