scholarly journals Ambient Assisted Living as Support for Aging in Place: Quantitative Users’ Acceptance Study on Ultrasonic Whistles

JMIR Aging ◽  
10.2196/11825 ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. e11825 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Biermann ◽  
Julia Offermann-van Heek ◽  
Simon Himmel ◽  
Martina Ziefle
Keyword(s):  
Assisted Living ◽  
Aging In Place ◽  
Ambient Assisted Living

scholarly journals Ambient Assisted Living as Support for Aging in Place: Quantitative Users’ Acceptance Study on Ultrasonic Whistles (Preprint)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Biermann ◽  
Julia Offermann-van Heek ◽  
Simon Himmel ◽  
Martina Ziefle
Keyword(s):  
Home Care ◽  
Assisted Living ◽  
Emergency Service ◽  
Aging In Place ◽  
Ambient Assisted Living ◽  
Minor Role ◽  
Living Room ◽  
Home Automation ◽  
Skilled Workers ◽  
Care Needs

BACKGROUND Given the fact of an aging society, new supply measures and living concepts are needed, especially as health impairments along with care dependency increase with age. As many elderly people wish to stay at home for as long as possible, ambient assisted living (AAL) represents a support for aging in place. OBJECTIVE AAL combines medical and care technology within living environments and is, therefore, a promising approach to cope with demographic change in terms of fast-growing care needs and fewer skilled workers. Ultrasonic whistles represent one innovative technical possibility for such supportive housing solutions. Central fields of application are home automation, emergency service, and positioning. As AAL technologies affect sensitive areas of life, it is of great interest under which conditions they are accepted or rejected, taking individual user requirements into account. Hence, the aim of this study was to investigate users’ perception and evaluation of ultrasonic whistles. METHODS In this study, we examined the acceptance of ultrasonic whistles in home care by function and room using a Web-based questionnaire. Besides an evaluation of the overall usefulness, we focused on the intention to use ultrasonic whistles; 270 participants assessed home automation, emergency service, and positioning as specific functions of ultrasonic whistles. Furthermore, bathroom, bedroom, and living room were evaluated as specific usage locations (rooms). With regard to the user’s perspective, the focus was set on age and attitudes toward aging of care receivers. RESULTS This study revealed a significant influence of function (F2,269=60.444; P<.001), room (F2,269=41.388; P<.001), and the interaction of function and room (F4,269=8.701; P<.001) on the acceptance of ultrasonic whistles. The use of emergency services within the bathroom represented the most accepted alternative, whereas positioning within the living room received the comparably lowest evaluations. Although user diversity played a minor role for acceptance overall, the assessment of single applications differed among user groups, particularly with regard to age differences (F20,500=1.988; P<.01) in the evaluation of specific installation options such as automated doors. CONCLUSIONS The study revealed profound insights into the user-centered assessment of ultrasonic whistles in home care and discovered function and room as influencing acceptance parameters. Concerning user characteristics, age, and attitude toward aging partly affected these evaluations, forming the basis for and showing the importance of further investigations in this context.

An Ambient Assisted Living platform for supporting aging in place of pre-frail and frail older adults: Rationale, HomeAssist plaform, quasi-experimental design, and baseline characteristics. (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
helene sauzeon ◽  
Arlette Edjolo ◽  
Hélène Amieva ◽  
Charles Consel ◽  
Karine Pérès
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Assisted Living ◽  
Independent Living ◽  
Aging In Place ◽  
Ambient Assisted Living ◽  
Large Set ◽  
Everyday Functioning ◽  
Frail Older Adults ◽  
Outcomes Measures ◽  
Quasi Experimental

UNSTRUCTURED Background: Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) technology is expected as a promising way for prolonging the aging in place. Very few evidence-based results are provided support to its real value, notably for frail older adults who have high risk of autonomy loss and of entering in nursing home. Objective: HomeAssist (HA) is a human-centered AAL platform offering a large set of applications for three main age-related need domains (Activities of Daily Living, Safety and Social participation), relying on a basic set of entities (sensors, actuators...). The HA intervention involves monitoring as well as assistive services to support independent living at home. The primary outcomes measures are related to aging in place in terms of effectiveness (institutionalization and hospitalization rates) and efficiency (everyday functioning indices). Secondary outcomes measures include indices of frailty, cognitive functioning, and psychosocial health of participants and their caregivers. Every 6 months, user experience and attitudes towards HA are also collected in equipped participants. Concomitantly, HA usages are collected. Methods: A study assessing the HA efficacy has been designed and is now conducted with 131 older adults aged 81.9 (±6.0) years (from autonomous to frail) who lived alone. The study design is quasi-experimental with a duration of 12 months optionally extensible to 24 months. It includes equipped participants, matched with non-equipped participants (n= 474). Follow-up assessments occurred at 0, 12 and 24 months. Results: The expected results are to inform the AAL value for independent living, but also to yield informed analysis on AAL usages and adoption in frail older individuals.

Ambient Assisted Living Systems: The Scope of Research and Development

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 21
Author(s):  
Ashish D Patel ◽  
Jigarkumar H. Shah
Keyword(s):  
Assisted Living ◽  
Independent Living ◽  
Intelligent Systems ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Ambient Assisted Living ◽  
Smart Devices ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
Aged Population ◽  
The People ◽  
Living Person

The aged population of the world is increasing by a large factor due to the availability of medical and other facilities. As the number grows rapidly, requirements of this segment of age (65+) are increasing rapidly as well as the percentage of aged persons living alone is also increasing with the same rate due to the inevitable socio-economic changes. This situation demands the solution of many problems like loneliness, chronic conditions, social interaction, transportation, day-to-day life and many more for independent living person. A large part of aged population may not be able to interact directly with new technologies. This sought some serious development towards the use of intelligent systems i.e. smart devices which helps the people with their inability to use the available as well future solutions. Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) is the answer to these problems. In this paper, issues related to AAL systems are studied. Study of challenges and limitations of this comparatively new field will help the designers to remove the barriers of AAL systems.

scholarly journals Contactless Interactive Fall Detection and Sleep Quality Estimation for Supporting Elderly with Incipient Dementia

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 388-391
Author(s):  
Roman Siedel ◽  
Tobias Scheck ◽  
Ana C. Perez Grassi ◽  
Julian B. Seuffert ◽  
André Apitzsch ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sleep Quality ◽  
Assisted Living ◽  
Ambient Assisted Living ◽  
Fall Detection ◽  
Quality Estimation ◽  
Emergency Situations ◽  
People With Dementia ◽  
Affected Person ◽  
Development State ◽  
Current Behaviour

AbstractIn recent years, the demographic change in conjunction with a lack of professional caregivers led to retirement homes reaching capacity. The Alzheimer Disease International stated that over 50 million people suffered from dementia in 2019 worldwide and twice the amount will presumably be effected in 2030. The field of Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) tackles this problem by facilitating technical system-aided everyday life. AUXILIA is such an AAL system and does not only support elderly people with dementia in an early phase, but also monitors their activities to provide behaviour analysis results for care attendants, relatives and physicians. Moreover, the system is capable of recognizing emergency situations like human falls. Furthermore, sleep quality estimation is employed to be able to draw conclusions about the current behaviour of an affected person. This article presents the current development state of AUXILIA.

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