Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Time duration of inactivity that determines when the system decides that the patient is
out of the home (see above description).
Time duration after which the system will issue an alert if the elderly is considered
inactive (see above description), specified in minutes.
The start and end times of the “night time” period. These two times tell the service what
time is considered to be “night time”, i.e. the period during which the care-giver wants
to receive alerts if the patient leaves the home.
During the pilot operation, there were some cases when bed sensors could not be used - for
example the elderly sleeps on a folding sofa and a bed sensor cannot be installed or if the
elderly does not want to have a bed sensor installed due to some health problems. In this
case, the current settings of this service cannot allow for optimal operation during the night
period. Therefore, one of the suggestions for improvement was for the intelligent front door
service to work without considering information from the bed sensor during the night.
However, the final solution could not be implemented by the end of the project; instead a
temporary solution was found for the special cases.
3.2 Carebox for the end-user
The only visible interface toward the ISISEMD platform for the elderly persons is the touch
screen-enabled device installed in their homes. The motivations behind the selection of such
kind of device are multiple:
1.
First of all, it is very difficult for people with cognitive impairments to learn how to
interact with new technologies: since they tend to forget what they already know, it
would not be effective at all introducing in their life new elements that are not familiar
to them
2.
In addition, for the same reason described above, the need for direct interaction
between them and the system must be reduced to the minimum, if not eliminated
3.
Finally, in the cases where such interactions cannot be eliminated, they must be
performed in the simplest and more intuitive modality possible
The touch screen-enabled device selected for providing the ISISEMD services for the end
user can fulfil the above-mentioned requirements in the way that:
1.
The shape, dimensions and aspect of the device are indeed identical to the ones of a
television set, an appliance whose diffusion, in the last fifty years, has reached almost
every home (at least in the developed countries). This means that it can be introduced in
the elderly persons' homes in a natural manner
2.
The device can provide different interaction levels; the level for each end-user can be
configured (at any time and remotely) by a care-giver based on the level of impairment.
In the simplest configuration, no interaction possibilities at all are provided
3.
The touch screen modality is currently the simplest and more intuitive technology
available to interact with a computing system, which requires a very low level of
training and cognitive capabilities
From a functional perspective, the device plays several roles:
Acts as the collector for all the messages that must be shown to the end-user. Running
an intelligent software module, it makes decisions on when a message must be
