Enhancing care homes with assistive video technology for distributed caregiving

Dementia care is becoming increasingly important in Japan as the elderly population grows. Care homes are designed so that caregivers can easily observe and subsequently respond to the needs of people with dementia. However, the layout of care homes can become overly restrictive for residents, for example, by not providing intermediate spaces where people can spontaneously interact and initiate conversations. We present a case study that explores the implementation of video monitoring in two purpose-built care homes in which we were asked to help overcome the blind spots presented by the layout. We collected data both before and after the implementation of the video monitoring in order to understand its effect. The balance between people’s sense of security and the concerns about loss of privacy through video monitoring is well established. However, we found that video monitoring had a beneficial effect on both the caregivers and the residents if implemented sensitively. Furthermore, the implementation of video monitoring could support the design of more beneficial care home layouts. In conclusion, we propose that the sensitive implementation of video monitoring be considered alongside design of the physical layout of care homes

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

User Interface Abstraction for enabling TV set based Inclusive Access to the Information Society

199 p.The television (TV) set is present in most homes worldwide, and is the most used Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Despite its large implantation in the market, the interactive services consumption on TV set is limited. This thesis focuses on overcoming the following limiting factors: (i) limited Human Computer Interaction and (ii) lack of considering user’s real life context in the digital television (dTV) service integration strategy. Making interactive services accessible to TV set’s large user base, and especially to the most vulnerable ones, is understood as the path to integrate the mankind with the information society. This thesis explores the use of user interface abstraction technologies to reach the introduced goals. The main contributions of this thesis are: (i) an approach to enable the universally accessible remote control of the TV set, (ii) an approach for the provision of universally accessible interactive services through TV sets, and (iii) an approach for the provision of universally accessible services in the TV user’s real life context. We have implemented the contributing approaches for different use cases, and we have evaluated them with real users, achieving good results

Use of a Telerehabilitation Delivery System for Fall Risk Screening

Problem: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates that falls are the “leading cause of injury death and the most common cause of nonfatal injuries and hospital admission for trauma among people ages 65 and older.”1 Falls can have significant economic consequences to the individual and payer sources. To address these consequences, telerehabilitation was hypothesized to be a suitable supplement for fall screening efforts. Several sources concluded that support for synchronous telerehab was underdeveloped in the literature. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore the acceptability, feasibility, reliability, and validity of telehealth-delivered fall screening among community-dwelling older adults. Procedures: This investigation implemented an experimental, quantitative, cross-sectional design employing both pretest-posttest control group and quasi-experimental static group comparisons using non-probability sampling. This study assembled a panel of experts to provide content validation for a survey tool developed to quantify an older adult’s behavioral intension to use and attitudes towards a telerehabilitation delivery system. Seven fall screening tools were investigated for agreement among remote and face-to-face raters, and for comparison with the face-to-face reference standard (Mini-BEST). Results: All three null hypotheses were rejected. Results indicate that a telerehabilitation delivery system is a reliable and valid method of screening and determining fall risk in community-dwelling older adults. This study produced a content validated, internally consistent survey instrument designed to determine attitudes and beliefs about telerehabilitation. An experimental design was able to demonstrate a positive significant change in 4 of 7 survey constructs among the intervention group after exposure to telerehabilitation as compared to post-test controls. Overall, no significant difference was calculated between face-to-face or telerehab raters, and both environments produced equivalency with scoring, fall risk classification, and ability to discern fallers from non-fallers. Results from the telerehab STEADI fall risk conclusions were calculated to be concurrently valid with the face-to-face reference standard screening tool, the Mini-BEST. Conclusions: This investigation expanded the array of remote healthcare delivery options for clinicians and clients. Further investigation in residential and community settings are recommended

Improving health outcomes for the elderly an analytic framework

The authors present an analytic framework for investigating interactive gaming technologies and integrating a number of such technologies into a remote healthcare monioring system (ReMoteCare) to help improve the quality of life of the elderly, the chronically unwell and infirm whether they are living in their own homes or in aged care facilities. The framework covers population characteristics of the cohort, the interactive technologies as well as economic and environmental factors. It is anticipated that a series of interactive exercises, developed in conjunction with a Feldenkrais movement therapist who specializes in exercises for the elderly, will help to improve the physical and mental health outcomes of this cohort

Paths and Technologies in the Life Project of People with Disabilities: International Perspectives and Educational Potential

The purpose of this paper was to analyse the core of the quality of life, intended as a complex construct with specific and transversal features. The approach to this issue, by linking it to the great emergency of disability in adulthood, pushes the analysis into deep conceptual pedagogical reflections, which lead the authors\u2019 initial reflections to focus on the theoretical framework related to the quality of life model and subsequently on the identification of some areas of intervention as a tangible application of the quality of life model. New perspectives and innovative potentials for the quality of life of adults with disability are investigated to reach new awareness, which can also be applied in different life contexts. The paper mentions meaningful trajectories, also from the international scene, aiming to guarantee significantly oriented life trajectories

Post-pandemic Recommendations: COVID-19 Continuity of Court Operations During a Public Health Emergency Workgroup

In this report, the COVID-19 Continuity of Court Operations During a Public Health Emergency Workgroup (Plan B Workgroup) makes recommendations about best practices and technologies that should be retained or adapted post-pandemic. The recommendations in this final Plan B Workgroup whitepaper are based on experience and feedback from Arizona’s courts addressing pandemic and post-pandemic practices. Although the original report, issued on June 2, 2021, included a May 2021 Survey of Arizona’s Courts, this updated report also includes information from a July 2021 State Bar of Arizona Survey and a September 2021 State of Arizona Public Opinion Survey addressing those practices. The workgroup’s findings and recommendations, which remain unchanged, can be summarized in five major categories: (1) Increasing Access to Justice, (2) Expanding Use of Technology, (3) Jury and Trial Management, (4) Communication Strategies and Disaster Preparedness, and (5) Health, Safety, and Security Protocols

Comparative study of IEEE 802.15.4 and IEEE 802.15.6 for WBAN-based CANet

International audienceIn this paper, we present an overview of IEEE 802.15.4 and 802.15.6 standards. Thereafter, in view of their various strengths and many similarities, we study the possibility of using one of these two norms to implement the body area network (WBAN) of CANet (an innovative ehealth project) scenario according to the nature of the studied sensors. To do so, we considered an hybrid differentiation layer, previously proposed, based on 802.15.4 and we made a classification of CANet ehealth sensors based on IEEE 802.15.6 native superframe periods and priority and service differentiation systems. Each choice between them has its advantages and disadvantages. Thus, it will be necessary to analyse in detail the simulation and prototyping results of 802.15.4 and 802.15.6 norms once implemented in CANet context in order to decide about the standard providing the optimal QoS