Supporting peace of mind and independent living with the Aurama awareness system

Abstract

An awareness system was designed to provide peace of mind and a sense of connectedness to adults who care for an elderly parent living alone. The iterative design of the Aurama awareness system showed and our empirical research, including field trials ranging from four to six months, confirm the potential of awareness systems to support both generations suggesting that research should examine, firstly, how to convey long-term trends regarding the wellbeing of the elderly and, secondly, how to intertwine the communication of awareness information with expressive forms of communication. We further explore the role that formal care providers can play when caring for the elderly using the awareness system. We discuss implications of our studies for the design of ambient intelligent systems supporting awareness between elderly, their adult children and care providers, and derive several lessons learned in conducting long-term field trials.

Promoting Social Connectedness through Human Activity-Based Ambient Displays

“…However, these studies [7,9,27,29,38] aimed to provide elderly contextual information and peace of mind only to caregivers. On the other hand, as mentioned earlier, the bidirectional interaction presented in [8] was not equally appreciated by both user groups. With our research, we attempt to bridge this gap through the use of wearable smartphone sensing, pattern recognition algorithms and visualization techniques to support interpersonal awareness of activity levels through a bidirectional display.…”

“…In subsequent installations, the Aurama application not only provided well-being information but also supported affective exchange through an intelligent photo frame jewellery [8]. Moreover, it facilitated bidirectional interaction through the sharing of home presence information.…”

A Sensor Platform for Non-invasive Remote Monitoring of Older Adults in Real Time

“…Aurama awareness is smart house system developed to support older people. It employs a tablet as a photo frame to communicate information with caregivers about the presence of the older adult [13]. It also employs an RFID sensor, and bed sensors to study the sleep and home occupancy.…”

Ambient Intelligence: Vision, research, and life

“…Clearly, as Ambient Intelligence technology becomes increasingly available as infrastructure, it becomes increasingly meaningful to diversify and specialize research agendas and visions for different application domains and target user groups. Similarly, different application areas for Ambient Intelligence research have evolved into flourishing research communities on their own right, such as Ambient Assisted Living [10,11], Hybrid Cities [33], Pervasive Games [4,31].…”