Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
16
Innovative Intelligent Services for
Supporting Cognitively Impaired
Older Adults and Their Caregivers
Anelia Mitseva
1
, Sofoklis Kyriazakos
2
, Antonis Litke
3
, Paolo Barone
4
,
Alessandro Mamelli
4
, Nikolaos Papadakis
3
and Neeli R. Prasad
2
1
North Denmark EU-Office/Aalborg Municipality,
2
Center for TeleInFrastructure/Aalborg University,
3
Converge ICT Solutions,
4
Hewlett Packard Italy,
1,2
Denmark
3
Greece
4
Italy
1. Introduction
1.1 European pilot project ISISEMD
ISISEMD project started in March 2009 is a European pilot project with the main aim to
design, implement and test in real-life conditions innovative intelligent services for older
adults with mild cognitive impairments and their formal and family care-givers (ISISEMD,
2009). Their ultimate goal is to improve the Quality of Life of the elderly and to help them to
live more independently. The technology service platform is integration of systems from
Hewlett Packard (Italy), Alcatel-Lucent (Italy), Converge ICT Solutions (Greece), Eltronic
A/S (Denmark) and Socrate Medical (Italy). The service platform has been tested, validated
and evaluated in four different European pilot sites (Frederikshavn in Denmark,
Lappeenranta in Finland, Trikala in Greece and Belfast in UK) for a duration of more than
one year and based on the outcome from the real-life operations and user feedback, it has
been optimised, improved and adapted for diverse regional conditions. This has been a very
challenging process because the user and functional requirements are very high w.r.t.
intuitive user interface with minimum user interaction, diverse needs of the main user
groups, personalisation needs, requirements for stable operation despite of the fact that it is
a pilot system, but working in real-life conditions and exposed to interruptions in
connectivity, hardware failures, human errors, etc.
1.2 Understanding the unmet needs of the end-user groups of ISISEMD services
According to the 2009 World Alzheimer Report, the number of people with dementia in
Europe is conservatively anticipated to increase by 40% over the next 20 years mainly due to
the increase in the ageing population (ALZ, 2009). This means that, due to limited resources,
