An Advanced Home ElderCare Service

With the increase of welfare cost all over the developed world, there is a need to resort to new technologies that could help reduce this enormous cost and provide some quality eldercare services. This paper presents a middleware-level solution that integrates monitoring and emergency detection solutions with networking solutions. The proposed system enables efficient integration between a variety of sensors and actuators deployed at home for emergency detection and provides a framework for creating and managing rescue teams willing to assist elders in case of emergency situations. A prototype of the proposed system was designed and implemented. Results were obtained from both computer simulations and a real-network testbed. These results show that the proposed system can help overcome some of the current problems and help reduce the enormous cost of eldercare service

Fall prevention intervention technologies: A conceptual framework and survey of the state of the art

In recent years, an ever increasing range of technology-based applications have been developed with the goal of assisting in the delivery of more effective and efficient fall prevention interventions. Whilst there have been a number of studies that have surveyed technologies for a particular sub-domain of fall prevention, there is no existing research which surveys the full spectrum of falls prevention interventions and characterises the range of technologies that have augmented this landscape. This study presents a conceptual framework and survey of the state of the art of technology-based fall prevention systems which is derived from a systematic template analysis of studies presented in contemporary research literature. The framework proposes four broad categories of fall prevention intervention system: Pre-fall prevention; Post-fall prevention; Fall injury prevention; Cross-fall prevention. Other categories include, Application type, Technology deployment platform, Information sources, Deployment environment, User interface type, and Collaborative function. After presenting the conceptual framework, a detailed survey of the state of the art is presented as a function of the proposed framework. A number of research challenges emerge as a result of surveying the research literature, which include a need for: new systems that focus on overcoming extrinsic falls risk factors; systems that support the environmental risk assessment process; systems that enable patients and practitioners to develop more collaborative relationships and engage in shared decision making during falls risk assessment and prevention activities. In response to these challenges, recommendations and future research directions are proposed to overcome each respective challenge.The Royal Society, grant Ref: RG13082

Dissertation: Examining and investigating home modifications and smart home technologies to reduce fall injury among older adults.

Nearly one in six U.S. residents are over the age of 65. The proportion of older adults in the U.S. is anticipated to grow to 22.1% of the total population by 2050. The cost of treating age related conditions and injuries is expensive, government programs including Medicaid paid over $550 Billion in 2017, and makes up between 14-16% of the federal budget each year. With the high cost of treating age related conditions and injuries, and the proportion of older adults continuing to increase every year, it is imperative that researchers and government entities find and invest in preventative measures in order to reduce injury and related healthcare costs. Among the many age-related injuries older adults suffer, falls are arguably the most important to address. It is estimated that one in three older adults has a fall every year. In 2016, falls were the seventh leading cause of death among older adults. Approximately one third of all fallers require medical attention after experiencing a fall. Over 800,000 older adults are hospitalized each year due to fall related injuries. Injuries sustained as a result of a serious fall include various fractures, traumatic brain injuries, and other cuts and bruises.Home modifications, and more recently smart home technologies, can help increase the safety of older adults living in the community. With older adults wanting to “age in place”, installing these modifications and technologies before an accident happens may lower rates of injury. Today, dozens of companies sell various smart home devices for the consumer market. Bud despite the high demand for these technologies by the American consumer, the ability of these devices to keep older adults safe, and how older adults value these technologies, remains uncertain. These home technologies may be particularly beneficial to older adults living in rural areas due to the increased isolation and limited access to healthcare resources. Previous research indicates rural populations have a greater proportion of older adults compared to urban areas, yet lack the infrastructure to provide specialty care to this population. It is estimated that more than 60 million family members provide some sort of informal care to an older adult relative. Of all of these family members, nearly 40% report spending 20 or more hours a week providing this unpaid care. Previous research has failed to examine how these family members feel about home modifications and technologies for their older adult relative. Finding ways to ease the burden of caring for older family members will significantly better the situations of many family relatives.This dissertation aims to cover three areas. 1. Identify people at risk of suffering subsequent fall injuries. Find the average time between an initial fall injury and a subsequent fall injury, and find average time between an initial fall injury and death.2. Examine the preferences of older adults living in a rural area towards various smart home technologies and home modifications.3. Examine the preferences of family members of older adults regarding smart home technologies and home modifications

Overcoming barriers and increasing independence: service robots for elderly and disabled people

This paper discusses the potential for service robots to overcome barriers and increase independence of elderly and disabled people. It includes a brief overview of the existing uses of service robots by disabled and elderly people and advances in technology which will make new uses possible and provides suggestions for some of these new applications. The paper also considers the design and other conditions to be met for user acceptance. It also discusses the complementarity of assistive service robots and personal assistance and considers the types of applications and users for which service robots are and are not suitable

Measuring the 'success' of telehealth interventions

Despite substantial investment over recent years in telehealth there appears to be little consensus regarding what a successful implementation should achieve. However, defining success is often controversial and complex due to differing views from the large number of stakeholders involved, the local environment where telehealth is deployed and the scope, or size, of any planned initiative. Nevertheless, a number of generic measures are proposed in this paper which then provides a framework for the measurement of success. The local context can then be applied to determine the exact emphasis on specific measures, but it is proposed that all of the measures should be included in the holistic measurement of success. Having considered what constitutes success attention is then given to how success should be quantified. Robust evaluation is fundamental and there is much debate as to whether the �gold standard� Randomised Control Trial (RCT) is the most appropriate methodology for telehealth. If the intervention, technology and system, can be maintained in a stable state then the RCT may well provide the most authoritative evidence for decision makers. However, ensuring such stability, in what is still a novel combination of technology and service, is difficult and consequently other approaches may be more appropriate when stability is unlikely to be maintained

M-health review: joining up healthcare in a wireless world

In recent years, there has been a huge increase in the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) to deliver health and social care. This trend is bound to continue as providers (whether public or private) strive to deliver better care to more people under conditions of severe budgetary constraint