Development of an ambient assisted living ecosystem

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de ComputadoresThe society that we live in faces today big demographic changes. Nowadays, peo-ple live longer, and it is expected that this trend will proceed. In 2000, there were already 420 million people with more than 65 years old, which correspond to about 7% of the world population. In 2050, it is expected that this number reaches 1500 million which corresponds to about 16% of the world population. Naturally, in these circumstances, the number of disabled people will increase as well. This context brings new challenges to the traditional health care systems in Portugal and in the rest of the world. There is an urgent need to search for new solutions that will allow people to live in the best possible way, in the latest stages of life. In order to fulfill this need, it is necessary to develop systems that allow to extend their life in their favorite environment, improving their safety, autonomy, mobility and welfare. Nowadays, information and communication technologies (ICT) offer new opportunities to provide care and assistance. Ambient Assisted Living (AAL), is such a paradigm, in which technology is used as a way to improve the independ-ence and welfare of aged or disabled people at their homes. This dissertation has the purpose of contributing to providing an answer to this necessity, associated to a development of an ecosystem for Ambient Assisted Living, associated to a business model and the search for the possibility of collabo-rative networks creation, in order to look for efficient and accessible solutions for AAL services provision

The planning and creation of an e-learning and recreational platform for seniors

Europe is facing great demographic changes. It is predicted that seniors will represent almost 30% of the European population by the year 2050. Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) solutions may provide an answer to the challenges that these demographic changes bring. AAL as a concept is to interconnect Information and Communication Technology (ICT) with certain devices in order to create products and services to assist its users in all periods of life (e.g. difficulty in climbing stairs can be compensated for by a mechanical stair lift). One important area of AAL is lifelong learning which aims to allow continuous education during the course of a person's life. One way of enabling lifelong learning for seniors is by using electronic-learning platforms (E-Learning). These platforms enable their users to access learning content from almost any location. However, the level of complexity of these platforms may arise as an obstacle for seniors. The Ambient Assisted Living for All (AAL4ALL) project was launched to create a wide range of AAL-related products and services. One of the services which will be offered by this project is an E-Learning and recreational platform especially designed for seniors. The objective of this dissertation is to plan and create the prototype of such a platform. In order to develop a prototype of this nature, we required assistance from the senior population to carry out two different types of studies. First a requirements study was performed in order to gather feedback from our target group before moving on to the development phase. Once the development phase was complete, a usability study was performed to test how seniors interacted with the prototype.A Europa está a enfrentar grandes alterações demográficas. Está previsto que a população idosa representará quase 30% da população Europeia em 2050. O Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) pode oferecer soluções para responder aos desafios que resultam destas alterações demográficas. O AAL significa a ligação de Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação (TIC) com determinados dispositivos, visando a criação de produtos e serviços que permitem auxiliar os seus utilizadores ao longo das suas vidas (por exemplo: a dificuldade de subir escadas pode ser compensada pelo uso de um elevador de escadas mecânico). Uma área importante do AAL consiste na aprendizagem ao longo da vida, que permite uma educação contínua no percurso da vida de uma pessoa. Uma forma de possibilitar a aprendizagem ao longo da vida à população idosa é através do uso de plataformas de E-Learning, as quais permitem aos seus utilizadores acederem a conteúdos de aprendizagem de praticamente qualquer local. Contudo, o interface utilizado neste tipo de plataformas tende a ser muito complexo para esta faixa etária. Neste sentido, o projecto chamado Ambient Assisted Living for All (AAL4ALL) foi lançado para criar uma vasta gama de produtos e serviços do AAL. Um dos serviços que será disponibilizado por este projecto é uma plataforma E-Learning especialmente concebida para idosos. O objetivo desta dissertação é planear e criar o protótipo desta plataforma. Com o intuito de desenvolver um protótipo desta natureza pedimos a colaboração de alguns seniores para realizar estudos de duas tipologias diferentes. Primeiro, foi elaborado um estudo de requisitos para obter as suas opiniões sobre o planeamento do protótipo. Por fim, após o desenvolvimento do protótipo, foi elaborado um estudo de usabilidade para testar como os idosos interagem com o mesmo

Improving elderly access to audiovisual and social media, using a multimodal human-computer interface

With the growth of Internet and especially, the proliferation of social media services, an opportunity has emerged for greater social and technological integration of the elderly. However, the adoption of new technologies by this segment of the population is not always straightforward mainly due to the physical and cognitive difficulties that are typically associated with ageing. Thus, for elderly to take advantage of new technologies and services that can help improve their quality of life, barriers must be broken by designing solutions with those needs in mind from the start. The aim of this work is to verify whether Multimodal Human-Computer Interaction (MHCI) systems designed with Universal Accessibility principles, taking into account elderly specific requirements, facilitate the adoption and access to popular Social Media Services (SMSs) and Audiovisual Communication Services, thus potentially contributing to the elderly social and technological integration. A user study was initially conducted in order to learn about the limitations and requirements of elderly people with existing HCI, concerning particularly SMSs and Audiovisual Communication Services, such as Facebook or Windows Live Messenger (WLM). The results of the study, basically a set of new MHCI requirements, were used to inform further development and enhancement of a multimodal prototype previously proposed for mobility-impaired individuals, now targeting the elderly. The prototype allows connecting users with their social networks through a text, audio and video communication service and integrates with SMSs, using natural interaction modalities, like speech, touch and gesture. After the development stage a usability evaluation study was conducted. The study reveals that such multimodal solution could simplify accessibility to the supported services, through the provision of simpler to use interfaces, by adopting natural interaction modalities and by being more satisfying to use by the elderly population, than most of the current graphical user interfaces for those same services, such as Facebook.Com o crescimento da Internet e, especialmente, das redes sociais surge a oportunidade para uma maior integração social e tecnológica dos idosos. No entanto, a adoção de novas tecnologias por essa população nem sempre é simples, principalmente devido às dificuldades físicas e cognitivas que estão associadas com o envelhecimento. Assim, e para que os idosos possam tirar proveito das novas tecnologias e serviços que podem ajudar a melhorar sua qualidade de vida, essas barreiras devem ser ultrapassadas desenhando soluções de raiz com essas necessidades em mente. O objetivo deste trabalho é verificar se interfaces humano-computador multimodais desenhadas com base em princípios de Acessibilidade Universal, tendo em conta requisitos específicos da população idosa, proporcionam um acesso simplificado a serviços de média social e serviços de comunicação audiovisuais, potencialmente contribuindo para a integração social e tecnológica desta população. Um estudo com utilizadores foi inicialmente conduzido a fim de apurar as necessidades especiais desses utilizadores com soluções de software, mais especificamente serviços de média social e serviços de conferência, como o Facebook ou o Windows Live Messenger. Os resultados do estudo foram utilizados para planear o desenvolvimento de um protótipo multimodal proposto anteriormente para utilizadores com mobilidade reduzida. Este permite ligar utilizadores às suas redes sociais através de um serviço de conferência por texto, áudio e vídeo, e um serviço integrado de média social, usando modalidades de interação natural, como o toque, fala e gestos. Após a fase de desenvolvimento foi realizado um estudo de usabilidade. Esse estudo revelou que este tipo de soluções pode simplificar a acessibilidade aos serviços considerados, dado ter interfaces mais simples, por adotar modalidades de interação mais naturais e por ser mais gratificante do que a maioria das interfaces gráficas atuais para os mesmos serviços, como por exemplo o Facebook

Autonomy in the AAL : between law and ethics

The growth of Silver Economy calls for a paradigm shift in senior care, where active and healthy ageing is a primary goal. It also coincides with the rapid development of new technologies – AAL being one of them. The AAL combines the advances in the emerging technologies with the need to promote healthy and active ageing experience. This master thesis focuses on the value of individual autonomy and its importance in the context of senior care. The main argument of this research is that individual autonomy is a crucial element in attaining the goal of active and healthy ageing. However, the impact of AAL technology on individual autonomy is uncertain. On one side, AAL's main goal is to enable independent and autonomous living for as long as possible, while on the other side, the AAL by its very design limits individual autonomy. Individual autonomy in the AAL is enabled through legal and ethical norms. The nature of the AAL technology and the contexts and norms under which it operates are dynamic and constantly changing. Therefore, legal regulation needs to be augmented by ethical norms that are fit to meet the ever-changing character of this emerging technology. In particular, ethical technology design principles have a great potential to address the novelty of the AAL and the challenges that European data protection legislation is failing to tackle

An Architecture for Development of Ambient Assisted Living Applications: a Case Study in Diabetes

Advances in sensors, mobile and embedded devices have made possible patient monitoring and provided medical treatments and other assistance in health care. Aging populations will benefit from reduced costs and improved health care through assisted living based on these technologies. In this paper we present a monitoring and control architecture allow control of a patient’s disease trough mobile and biometric devices. Our architecture is based on an Ambient Assisted Living control that provides different modules organized in a final application embedded in the mobile devices. This application is compounded by aspects like control of measurement, data obtained and representation, generation of suggestions, prevention, and education control. We have explored the architecture by developing a final application and implementing them in a prototype system. Our system shows the feasibility and opportunity of an open approach to ambient assisted living architecture.Advances in sensors, mobile and embedded devices have made possible patient monitoring and provided medical treatments and other assistance in health care. Aging populations will benefit from reduced costs and improved health care through assisted living based on these technologies. In this paper we present a monitoring and control architecture allow control of a patient’s disease trough mobile and biometric devices. Our architecture is based on an Ambient Assisted Living control that provides different modules organized in a final application embedded in the mobile devices. This application is compounded by aspects like control of measurement, data obtained and representation, generation of suggestions, prevention, and education control. We have explored the architecture by developing a final application and implementing them in a prototype system. Our system shows the feasibility and opportunity of an open approach to ambient assisted living architecture