Matching technologies of home automation, robotics, assistance, geriatric telecare and telemedicine

Abstract

R e v i e w Buckheit 1 has suggested that the impact of the ageing society could be of greater concern than the current financial crisis. The ratio of persons 65+ years of age to the labour force (15-64 years) will rise from 25% in 2005 to 31% in 2020 and further increase to 52% in 2050 2. Since the absolute number of registered nurses is expected to remain constant 3 , an enormous pressure on the health care sector will result. Most gerontechnologies are developed for functional compensation and assistance to ease the burden on the care sector 4. In this study we address home automation 5 , robotics 6 , assistive technology 7 , geriatric telecare and telemedicine 8 (Table 1). These technologies have long histories of use supporting the aging society by improving the quality of life of older persons through ICT (Information and Communication Technology) 5-8. More than ten years ago Healy 9 argued that ICT would change health care, even then telematics was found to be cost effective in terms of time, money, quality and accessibility. Currently, most home automation, robotics, assistive technology, geriatric telecare, and telemedicine systems are stand-alone, having no operational dependencies on other systems. These technologies have individual taxonomies, methods, protocols and standards that may not integrate easily. Nevertheless, there exists a huge conceptual overlap between the intended functionality of apparently similar systems. For example, tracking people with ultra wideband (UWB) sen

Addressing Maslow’s deficiency needs in smart homes

“…This way the user may freely choose and change the functionality of the system by implementing or removing certain applications, as soon as new needs arise or old ones loose value. Apparently a high level of system integration is not only needed from a technological point of view 1 , but also to strengthen the user value of smart-home systems.…”

Assessing Smart-Home Platforms for Ambient Assisted Living (AAL)

“…A platform that supports a broad range of applications is important to arrive at successful AAL for several reasons. Firstly, older people need a broad range of support applications at home (Franchimon & Brink, 2009). Secondly, a widely used platform is a necessary precondition for the future growth of the market in AAL products and services (Sangiovanni-Vincentelli, 2002).…”

“…The complexity of such smart-home systems calls for the integration of technologies from several domains by a dedicated middleware framework (Franchimon & Brink, 2009;Yu, Zhang, Indulska, & Becker, 2011). Such a framework provides a uniform platform to serve and to integrate heterogeneous devices and services.…”

“…Such a framework provides a uniform platform to serve and to integrate heterogeneous devices and services. It has been shown that a uniform platform is required to arrive at a widespread introduction of AAL systems (Brink & Bronswijk, 2013;Franchimon F & Brink M, 2009). Functions of such a platform vary from dealing with complex heterogeneity problems, to providing the support for context awareness (Gámez & Fuentes, 2011).…”

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