Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
2. AAL for persons
The original definition for this domain has been “Ageing well at home: enjoying a
healthier and higher quality of daily life for a longer time, assisted by technology,
while maintaining a high degree of independence, autonomy and dignity.”
Since it is not the intention of AAL to lock the elder persons into their home, the
name of the domain has been changed in AAL4persons to reflect the concept of person
centric applications. Based on the observation that a person (with in-body or on-body
sensors) traverses many physical locations (room, home, car, workplace, shops,
outdoors), each with a collection of environmental sensors, either physically placed in
the space or built into the furniture or appliances) and virtual spaces (e-shopping,
gaming, chatting, searching or planning activity), depending on the current activity or
focus, we would like to change the focus on the area “Ageing well at home”. The
current definition is strongly related to location. In our context it might be more
practical to replace the name by “Ageing well for the person” and adding to the
definition with a sub-division either “at home” or “on the move” (AAL@home,
AALon_the_move).
Since this application domain is still very broad the following sub-domains have
been introduced:
AAL for health, rehabilitation and care;
•
personal and home safety and security;
•
other person-centred services.
•
2.1. AAL for health, rehabilitation and care
Individualized therapies and care lead to a better quality of life for those people
accessing the service. The Swiss online pharmacy “Mediservice” offers a new “pharma
care” program that supports patients with heavy chronic diseases (MediService, 2007).
Due to the aging society and the introduction of new care models (early discharge,
integrated care models outside hospitals) the demand for home care is increasing.
Future care will become more flexible and interconnected, i.e. home care, stationary
care and acute medical treatment will be strongly interlinked and combined. In addition
for chronic diseases new care models for disease management concentrating on
preventing re-hospitalisation of patients are coming up. This involves individual care
services but also requires the use of new technology to enable the complex
orchestration of the different players. New technologies are therefore the enablers of a
future care and rehabilitation system. However, new processes and business models
also need to be implemented to bring the new possibilities to the market.
Undergoing treatments by drugs or rehabilitation that are properly prescribed by
clinicians is fundamental in preserving and improving health. To maintain this,
technology can be used to carry out certain therapies as shown in the following
examples.
Memory services
. Smart dispensers can remind users of the times to take drugs, also
including the correct doses. The systems can also recognize when the medicines are
