Project description
Smart home solutions for senior citizens
Nearly 14 % of the EU population is over the age of 65, and the number is expected to double by 2050. Healthcare and social services are no doubt challenged by the growing and ageing population. This is why improving the quality of life of Europe’s increasingly elderly population is high on the agenda. In this context, the EU-funded SMILE project will develop e-health solutions as support for older adults at home. Specifically, it will identify the needs of elderly living at home and work with them to co-create digital solutions. Overall, the aim of the project is to develop smart home environments that can reduce hospitalisation rates, particularly for elderly people in remote areas.
Objective
Drawing on practical situations that older people face in daily living, SMILE will create SMart Inclusive Living Environments (SLE) with novel eHealth solutions enabling ageing in place. There are 6 main objectives:
1. Identify the needs and preferences of older people while living in their home environments.
2. Undertake co-creation of easy to use digital solutions with older people and novel methods to involve people with dementia.
3. Develop a smart AI-based system (Digital Care Facilitator and Conversational Agent) to proactively support older people in daily living.
4. To provide acceptable digital solutions when these solutions are introduced into older peoples lives
5. Evaluate the SMILE package to assess replicability and scalability in enhancing living spaces supporting independent, active and socially inclusive living for older people.
6. Build Europe-Canada cooperation in replicating, scaling and extending the results of SMILE to benefit the very heterogeneous populations of older people in our societies.
These objectives will be achieved by 3 workstreams based on trans disciplinary research: co-creative design and evaluation; digital care facilitator and conversational agent; SMILE SLE ecosystem and digital solutions. Our targeted breakthroughs for smart living environments supporting independent and active living are: a participatory SLE ecosystem model; the ‘Digital Care Facilitator’, an AI-based system [TRL6]; a conversational agent as an everyday intermediary enhancing social participation [TRL6]; personal mHealth apps, and eHealth monitors and devices [TRL5-8]. We will demonstrate that SMILE works for a very heterogeneous group with different needs and preferences: older people with severe dementia, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and care transitions during post-surgery recovery. With this combined package and related service improvements SMILE will go beyond state of the art in ways that are sustainable, scalable and exploitable.
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Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinator
2382 Brumunddal
Norway