Delivering smart homes for the elderly
Over the years, various open and proprietary technologies and applications have been developed for healthy ageing. However, there is a need for integration and interoperability across these heterogeneous solutions so that they can be deployed at a large scale in different countries around the world.
An IoT platform for the delivery of healthy ageing solutions across Europe
The EU-funded ACTIVAGE(opens in new window) initiative brought together industries, research centres, SMEs, service providers and public authorities to make this a reality. “Our goal was to build the first European ‘IoT for Active Ageing’ ecosystem, a digital interconnection-based concept to keep the elderly safe, support their independence and help them deal with chronic disorders and their progression,” explains Sergio Guillén, ACTIVAGE project deputy coordinator. The ACTIVAGE IoT ecosystem suite (AIOTES) integrates services that monitor daily activity and mobility and ensure safety, security and comfort at home. Health monitoring and support to caregivers are also provided alongside solutions for preventing the mental decline of the elderly through cognitive stimulation and social engagement. The 8 000 end users who participated at the different ACTIVAGE deployment sites were elderly people that live alone and receive professional or informal care. Their everyday needs were addressed via a number of services, including telemonitoring and telecare solutions. Moreover, their homes were converted to ‘smart homes’ through the installation of non-intrusive motion and activity sensors as well as medical devices. All sensors sent daily indications to the ACTIVAGE platform and to caregivers.
The future of the ACTIVAGE ageing well solutions
AIOTES software was deployed over existent IoT platforms to demonstrate interoperability and evaluated across 12 deployment sites in 9 European cities by measuring specific key performance indicators related to quality of life, economic impact, acceptability and usability. The software also provided data privacy and security across the whole IoT chain and several services for big data and analytics using AI. The final results of ACTIVAGE were communicated through the organisation of a digital ACTIVAGE virtual experience day(opens in new window) event in October 2020. This featured more than 30 participants from 7 different countries and was streamed through Zoom and YouTube for over 300 attendees. ACTIVAGE has created a unified framework for the integration of different IoT technologies and solutions for active and healthy ageing, overcoming existing fragmentation issues. “Implementation of this platform across Europe is expected to contribute to the sustainability of the health and care systems and improvement of the quality of life and autonomy of older adults in the form of independent living,” emphasises Guillén. Various members of the ACTIVAGE project have established ACTIVAGE.ORG(opens in new window), an association that will be responsible for promoting and deploying active and healthy ageing services and technologies in Europe using the project results. ACTIVAGE association will also extend the evolution of the services to other areas of activity. ACTIVAGE results have also been fed into several H2020 projects using AI to personalise early risk detection or integrated care. This will advance scientific knowledge and improve existing solutions and services for the well-being of senior citizens.
