A systematic review of lifestyle monitoring technologies

Abstract

Lifestyle, or behavioural monitoring is an important element of telecare research where changes in activity profiles are used as a proxy to highlight a change in an individual"s health or care status. However, despite the promise of this approach for users and care providers it has been slow to develop. A literature review was undertaken to establish the current position with regard to lifestyle monitoring and to use this to inform requirements for the future development and implementation of such systems. In total, 74 papers met the inclusion criteria. Only 4 papers reported trials involving 20 or more individuals with a further 17 papers reporting trials involving one or more individuals. Most papers (n=53) were concerned with technology development initiatives. With respect to the technologies and strategies employed, motion monitoring dominated, followed by door and electrical appliance usage. The predominant monitoring strategy is that of detecting changes in activity levels. However, it was noticeable that little attention was given to determining when or how changes in the profile of activity should be used to raise a call for assistance from a health or care professional.

“Are You Sure?”

“…We are not the first to call for more cost-effective, scalable, and reproducible measures to describe daily activity and to detect subtle changes in those activities. “Smart home” technologies aimed at prolonging safety and independence in older adults, and identifying the earliest signs of physical or cognitive decline, have been extensively described and reviewed elsewhere (Alwan, 2009; Brownsell et al, 2011; Mahoney et al, 2007; Reeder et al, 2013). However few have been deployed in long-term, large-scale studies.…”

How In-Home Technologies Mediate Caregiving Relationships in Later Life

“…Most systems are designed to provide only critical incident notifications. How critical incidents are identified and consequent action steps are still in a nascent stage, although many commercial systems are already in use (Brownsell, Bradley, Blackburn, Cardinaux, & Hawley, 2011). Potential problems with current systems have not been thoroughly studied and are thus the implications of their use are not well understood.…”

Why do few assistive technology systems make it to market? The case of the HandyHelper project

“…During requirements gathering, it was hard to explain what a system like this could do to the older people with less technical background. The intelligence made the project particularly innovative, because although motion monitoring is used very often, few projects actually use this information to raise an alarm [7] as was the case here. However, the algorithms developed for the Intelli project were complex and required assistance from external specialists.…”