Driven by the ongoing demographical, structural, and social changes in all modern, industrialized countries, there is a huge interest in IT-based equipment and services these days that enable independent living of people with specific needs. Despite of promising concepts, approaches and technology, those systems are still rather a vision than reality. In order to pave the way towards a common understanding of the problem and overall software solution approaches, this paper (i) characterizes the Ambient Assisted Living domain, (ii) briefly presents relevant software architecture trends, esp. applicable styles and patterns and (iii) discusses promising software technology already available to solve the problems
