8,519 research outputs found
Measuring the Use of the Active and Assisted Living Prototype CARIMO for Home Care Service Users: Evaluation Framework and Results
To address the challenges of aging societies, various information and communication technology (ICT)-based systems for older people have been developed in recent years. Currently, the evaluation of these so-called active and assisted living (AAL) systems usually focuses on the analyses of usability and acceptance, while some also assess their impact. Little is known about
the actual take-up of these assistive technologies. This paper presents a framework for measuring the take-up by analyzing the actual usage of AAL systems. This evaluation framework covers detailed information regarding the entire process including usage data logging, data preparation, and usage data analysis. We applied the framework on the AAL prototype CARIMO for measuring
its take-up during an eight-month field trial in Austria and Italy. The framework was designed to guide systematic, comparable, and reproducible usage data evaluation in the AAL field; however, the general applicability of the framework has yet to be validated
A Kinect-Based Interactive System for Home-Assisted Active Aging
Virtually every country in the world is facing an unprecedented challenge: society is aging.Assistive technologies are expected to play a key role in promoting healthy lifestyles in the elderly.This paper presents a Kinect-based interactive system for home-assisted healthy aging, which guides,supervises, and corrects older users when they perform scheduled physical exercises. Interactionstake place in gamified environments with augmented reality. Many graphical user interface elementsand workflows have been designed considering the sensory, physical and technological shortcomingsof the elderly, adapting accordingly the interaction methods, graphics, exercises, tolerance margins,physical goals, and scoring criteria. Experiments involved 57 participants aged between 65 and 80who performed the same physical routine six times during 15 days. After each session, participantscompleted a usability survey. Results provided significant evidence that support (1) the effectivenessof the system in assisting older users of different age ranges, (2) the accuracy of the system inmeasuring progress in physical achievement of the elderly, and (3) a progressive acceptance ofthe system as it was used. As a main conclusion, the experiments verified that despite their poortechnological skills, older people can adapt positively to the use of an interactive assistance tool foractive aging if they experience clear benefits
Fall Prediction and Prevention Systems: Recent Trends, Challenges, and Future Research Directions.
Fall prediction is a multifaceted problem that involves complex interactions between physiological, behavioral, and environmental factors. Existing fall detection and prediction systems mainly focus on physiological factors such as gait, vision, and cognition, and do not address the multifactorial nature of falls. In addition, these systems lack efficient user interfaces and feedback for preventing future falls. Recent advances in internet of things (IoT) and mobile technologies offer ample opportunities for integrating contextual information about patient behavior and environment along with physiological health data for predicting falls. This article reviews the state-of-the-art in fall detection and prediction systems. It also describes the challenges, limitations, and future directions in the design and implementation of effective fall prediction and prevention systems
Walking in the High-rise City: A Health Enhancement and Pedometer-determined Ambulatory (HEPA) Program in Hong Kong
published_or_final_versio
A Smartphone Application Designed to Engage the Elderly in Home-Based Rehabilitation
As life expectancy increases, it is imperative that the elderly take advantage of the benefits of technology to remain active and independent. Mobile health applications are widely used nowadays as they promote a healthy lifestyle and self-management of diseases, opening new horizons in the interactive health service delivery. However, adapting these applications to the needs and requirements of the elderly is still a challenge. This article presents a smartphone application that is part of a multifactorial intervention to support older people with balance disorders. The application aims to enable users to self-evaluate their activity and progress, to communicate with each other and, through strategically selected motivational features, to engage with the system with undiminished interest for a long period of time. Mock-up interfaces were evaluated in semi-structured focus groups and interviews that were performed across three European countries. Further evaluation in the form of four pilot studies with 160 participants will be performed and qualitative and quantitative measures will be used to process the feedback about the use of the application
Augmented Human Assistance (AHA)
Aging and sedentarism are two main challenges for social and health
systems in modern societies. To face these challenges a new generation of ICT
based solutions is being developed to promote active aging, prevent sedentarism
and find new tools to support the large populations of patients that suffer chronic
conditions as result of aging. Such solutions have the potential to transform
healthcare by optimizing resource allocation, reducing costs, improving diagno ses and enabling novel therapies, thus increasing quality of life.
The primary goal of the “AHA: Augmented Human Assistance” project is to de velop novel assistive technologies to promote exercise among the elderly and
patients of motor disabilities. For exercise programs to be effective, it is essential
that users and patients comply with the prescribed schedule and perform the ex ercises following established protocols. Until now this has been achieved by hu man monitoring in rehabilitation and therapy session, where the clinicians or
therapists permanently accompany users or patient. In many cases, exercises are
prescribed for home performance, in which case it is not possible to validate their
execution. In this context, the AHA project is an integrative and cross-discipli nary approach of 4 Portuguese universities, the CMU, and 2 Portuguese industry
partners, that combines innovation and fundamental research in the areas of hu man-computer interaction, robotics, serious games and physiological computing
(see partner list in Appendix A). In the project, we capitalize on recent innova tions and aim at enriching the capabilities and range of application of assistive
devices via the combination of (1) assistive robotics; (2) technologies that use
well-understood motivational techniques to induce people to do their exercises in
the first place, and to do them correctly and completely; (3) tailored and relevant
guidance in regard to health care and social support and activities; and (4) tech nologies to self-monitoring and sharing of progress with health-care provider enabling clinicians to fine-tune the exercise regimen to suit the participant’s ac tual progress.
We highlight the development of a set of exergames (serious games controlled
by the movement of the user’s body limbs) specifically designed for the needs of
the target population according to best practices in sports and human kinetics
sciences. The games can be adapted to the limitations of the users (e.g. to play in
a sitting position) so a large fraction of the population can benefit from them. The
games can be executed with biofeedback provided from wearable sensors, to pro duce more controlled exercise benefits. The games can be played in multi-user
settings, either in cooperative or competitive mode, to promote the social rela tions among players. The games contain regional motives to trigger memories
from the past and other gamification techniques that keep the users involved in
the exercise program. The games are projected in the environment through aug mented reality techniques that create a more immersive and engaging experience
than conventional displays. Virtual coach techniques are able to monitor the cor rectness of the exercise and provide immediate guidance to the user, as well as
providing reports for therapists. A socially assistive robot can play the role of the
coach and provide an additional socio-cognitive dimension to the experience to
complement the role of the therapist. A web service that records the users’ per formances and allows the authorized therapists to access and configure the exer cise program provides a valuable management tool for caregivers and clinical
staff. It can also provide a social network for players, increasing adherence to the
therapies.
We have performed several end-user studies that validate the proposed ap proaches. Together, or in isolation, these solutions provide users, caregivers,
health professionals and institutions, valuable tools for health promotion, disease
monitoring and prevention.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Challenges in Developing Applications for Aging Populations
Elderly individuals can greatly benefit from the use of computer applications, which can assist in monitoring health conditions, staying in contact with friends and family, and even learning new things. However, developing accessible applications for an elderly user can be a daunting task for developers. Since the advent of the personal computer, the benefits and challenges of developing applications for older adults have been a hot topic of discussion. In this chapter, the authors discuss the various challenges developers who wish to create applications for the elderly computer user face, including age-related impairments, generational differences in computer use, and the hardware constraints mobile devices pose for application developers. Although these challenges are concerning, each can be overcome after being properly identified
Virtual reality as a potential tool to face frailty challenges
The aging population and the corresponding increase in age-related diseases present scientific
community and public health authorities with imminent challenges. One of these challenges deals
with a deeper understanding of functional status of elderly in order to prevent and/or delay
the onset of late-life disability (Rodr\uedguez-Artalejo and Rodr\uedguez-Ma\uf1as, 2014). The syndrome
of \u201cfrailty\u201d has been recently introduced in literature to specifically characterize the health of
older individuals who deserve special attention because of their increased vulnerability to adverse
health outcomes (Afilalo et al., 2010). Although there is not a unique definition of frailty (Morley
et al., 2013), the majority of studies refers to the five operational criteria (Fried et al., 2001):
decreased gait speed, reduced grip strength, prolonged and unmotivated exhaustion, low physical
activity, unintended weight loss. The problem of different definitions leads also to a large variation
in reported prevalence rates, which range approximately from 5 to 60% (Collard et al., 2012).
However, this multifaceted decline in different physiological systems make frail older individuals
progressively more exposed to stressors (Clegg et al., 2013), making urgent the need for better care
intervention
- …