The launched projects' objectives are to facilitate life conditions of the elderly generation:
- OLDES - 045282 - From 01/01/2007 to 31/12/2009 - 36 Months
The OLDES project will offer new technological solutions to improve the quality of life of older people. OLDES aims at developing a very low cost and easy to use entertainment and health care platform designed to ease the life of older people in their homes. In order to achieve this, new concepts developed in Information Technologies will be integrated and adapted. OLDES will provide: user entertainment services, through easy-to-access thematic channels and special interest forums supported by animators; and health care facilities based on established Internet and tele-care communication standards. The system will include wireless ambient and medical sensors linked via a contact centre to social services and health care providers. OLDES will also cover the definition, implementation and evaluation of a Knowledge Management (KM) program, an advanced user profiling system that will enhance the communication between all the stakeholders of the system. The system will be tested at two different locations: Italy over a group of 100 elderly (including 10 suffering with cardio disease) and Czech Republic over a group of 10 diabetic patients. OLDES puts older people at the centre and makes their needs the main priority in all developments. This will be achieved through the use of modelling and animation tools to create scenarios designed to elicit responses from older people, their carers, and service providers. Animation and simulation will help to ensure that developments are, at all stages, grounded in the realities of social and health care, the cultures and economies of the specific pilot contexts, and as wide a range as possible of other European public service contexts. To maximise the flexibility and exploitability of its products, technical outputs will be packaged appropriately into highly configurable service components. - EMERGE - 45056 - From 01/02/2007 to 31/10/2009 - 33 Months
Delayed calls of emergency medical services (e.g. in case of physical or mental disorders resulting from strokes or falls) lead to increased hospitalisation and movement of elderly people into nursing homes. This decreases their quality of life unnecessarily and causes considerable costs. Due to demographical changes in Europe, this situation is expected to get worse in the future. This problem is addressed in EMERGE by supporting elderly people with innovative emergency monitoring and prevention. Humans are bio-psycho-social beings, whose character is to follow typical behaviour. Especially elderly people have this character. The innovation is to algorithm this behaviour by a holistic approach in order to detect deviations from typical behaviour patterns and to reason on acute disorders in their health condition in case of strokes, falls or similar emergencies. The approach is to use ambient and unobtrusive sensors to monitor activity, location, and vital data. Daily rou-tine is tracked in order to detect abnormalities and to create early indicators for potentially arising emergencies. EMERGE engineers a prototypical solution that treats emergencies with stepwise assistance. First, it provides early proactive assistance to the elderly himself. Next, it integrates friends, family, or caregivers. In case of an emergency that cannot be handled in the first two steps, an integrated emergency medical service (EMS) is called and informed about the case and the personal situation of the affected person. The integrated EMS can resolve the situation through medical care, telemedicine counselling, activation of social services, or sending a rescue team. The impact of the developed prototypical solution on quality of life will be measured in an Assisted Living Laboratory and in a multinational site evaluation. It is expected, that EMERGE will help elderly people to live a safer, self-determined life and to stay longer in their preferred environment. - CAALYX - 45215 -From 01/01/2007 to 31/12/2008 - 24 Months
Europe faces a social change, which is brought about by the unprecedented demographic change: the share of elderly people to the entire population is steadily growing, while the share of the youngest, especially the working population is shrinking. Ambient Assisted Living (AAL), as a specific user-oriented type of "Ambient Intelligence", may greatly help in this situation. AAL aims to prolong the time people can live in a decent more independent way by increasing their autonomy and self-confidence, by allowing them to discharge normal everyday activities, by improved monitoring and care of the elderly or ill person, by enhancing their security while ultimately saving resources. The main objective is to develop a wearable light device able to measure specific vital signs of the elder or ill person, to detect falls and to communicate autonomously in real time with his/her caregiver in case of an emergency, wherever they are. The emergency information can be directed to the personal caretaker and/or the 112 Emergency Service. The emergency information will provide the geographic position and health information of the elder in a sensible way for the caretaker or emergency service. The incorporation of largely non-intrusive new sensors for fall detection and highly sensitive positioning is expected to address many of the elderly concerns about adopting technology. The monitoring device for the caretaker can range from a mobile phone and/or a more complex system so that an integrated caretaking service can be created to look after groups of elders. In this case, when monitoring the elder at home, the system will be complemented with other devices such as cameras in a way that personal services can be established for the elder. The system will be tested in a real usability site arranged through a social programme for the elderly, and will obtain reliable assessment by gathering real end user's feedback.
For further information, please contact:
ICT for Health
European Commission - Information society and Media DG
Office: BU31 06/73 B-1049 Brussels
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Tel: +32 2 296 41 94
Fax: +32 2 296 01 81
http://europa.eu/information_society/eHealth