Ambient-Assisted Living

Tools for Older Adults

Parisha Rashidi and Alex Mihailidis
Presented by: Kevin Facun
A RAPIDLY AGING SOCIETY

• By 2050, 20% of the world population

will be age 60 or older
• In the U.S. about 13% of the total
population accounts for the older
population.
• About 80% of those over 65 are living
with at least one chronic disease.
• While 5.4M are estimated to be
suffering from Alzheimers disease
• Last 2016, 4.38% of the Filipino
Population is aged to 65 years and
over (M:1.8M / F:2.6M)
Challenges for the Society and
Healthcare System

Increase Increase in
in Healthcare
Diseases Cost

Shortage
The Aging
of
Population
Caregivers

Larger
Impact on Dependency
Society
AMBIENT INTELLIGENCE PARADIGM

A new paradigm in information

technology aimed at empowering
people’s capabilities by the means of
digital environment that are sensitive,
adaptive, and responsible to human
needs.

This vision of daily environments will

enable innovative human-machine
interactions characterized by pervasive,
unobtrusive, and anticipatory
communications.
AMBIENT-ASSISTED LIVING (AAL) TECHNOLOGIES

Can be used for preventing, curing, and

improving wellness and health conditions
for older adults.

• Medication management/Medication
reminder
• Mobile emergency response systems
• Video Surveillance systems
• Mobility and Automation
• Connect and communicate with family
and peers

• Fall Detection Systems

AAL TOOLS

SMART
Home

Robotics

Mobile and
Wearable
Sensors
 Smart Home
 Elite Care. An assistive living
facility equipped with sensors to
monitor indicators such as time in
bed, bodyweight, and sleep
restlessness using various
sensors.
 Aware Home project at Georgia
Tech. Employs a variety of
sensors such as smart floor
sensors, as well as assistive
robots for monitoring and helping
the elderly.
 Welfare Techno House project.
Measured indicators such as ECG,
body weight, and urinary volume
using sensors placed in the
bathroom and bathtub.
 Robotics
 Robots assisting with ADL
activities. Tasks include self-
maintenance activities, such as
feeding, dressing, grooming, etc.
 Robots assisting with
instrumental activities of daily
living (IADL). Tasks include the
ability to use instruments in daily
living, such as the successful use
of the telephone, preparing food,
etc.
 Robots assisting with enhanced
activities of daily living (EADL).
Tasks include participation in
social activities, such as engaging
in hobbies.
Algorithms  Mobile Activity Recognition
 Ambient Activity Recognition
Activity  Vision-Based Activity
Recognition Recognition

Context-aware system used to

represent context information
Context
Modeling such as user profile, medical
history and preferences

Finding patterns in data that do

Anomaly not conform to the expected
Detection
behavior

Tracking and monitoring. E.g.

Location &
Identity
Indoor Tracking: Smart Floor,
Identification Ultrasonic, Vision-based; Resident
Identification: RFID badge

Auto reminder: Cognitive

Planning
Orthotics; Therapy; Continuous
Health Monitoring
Applications Examples
A. 1. Smart Cane that classify
cane usage and walking
pattern, and informs elderly
Health & in case of high risk in falling.
Activity 2. IMMED project monitors
Monitoring certain indicators like
Tools
changes in movement
pattern, walking speed,
Wandering
sleep rhythm as early signs
and
Prevention of dementia.
Tools B. 1. Outcare. Supports
disoriented elderly by
alerting the caretakers in
Cognitive case of deviating from
Orthotics predefined routes or daily
signature routes.
C. 1. SenseCam is developed by
Microsoft which helps the
wearer recollect aspects of
earlier experience acting as
retrospective memory aid.
Design Issues
As the sensor are usually in direct contact with the body, their size and
compatibility with human body tissue is very important. An implication
of small size devices is reducing the battery size while maintaining
efficiency. To avoid battery usage problems, energy harvesting or
short-range wireless energy can be used in the future.

Another important issue is to consider related social and fashion

concerns, for example, by using common devices such as smartphones
to avoid drawing attention and possible stigmatization.

Social and Ethical Issues

Preserving privacy and confidentiality should be considered in design
specifications. All communication should be encrypted and secure.
Authenticate the identity of the older adult using unobtrusive
biometrics.

It is also important to ensure that technology does not replace human

care and will not result in older adults’ isolation, or does not threaten
trust in patient-physician relation.
Future Research Paths

Sensor Technology
Assistive Robotics Technology
Security and Privacy
Human Factors
Algorithms
Legal and Ethical