consumer grade Ambient assisted living Product family for OLder adult based on indoor LOcation technologies

Project Information

APOLLO

Grant agreement ID: 739601

DOI

10.3030/739601

Project closed

EC signature date 1 March 2017

Start date 1 September 2017

End date 31 August 2018

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs

Total cost

€ 79 593,75

EU contribution

€ 79 593,75

Coordinated by

NIVELY
France

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - APOLLO (consumer grade Ambient assisted living Product family for OLder adult based on indoor LOcation technologies)

Reporting period: 2017-09-01 to 2018-08-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Old people unable to afford formal care (e.g. nursing home), or not willing to, will live in a home no longer ensuring their safety, and will rely on fewer and increasingly strained family members.
In Europe, average age is set to increase from 40.4 yrs in 2008 to 47.9 yrs in 2060. By 2060, average life expectancy will increase by almost 8 yrs (from 76.7 to 84.6) and life expectancy at 65 will increase by more than 5 yrs, reaching 22.4 yrs for man and 25.6 yrs for women. Between 2013-2060 the share of elderly people (65+) will grow from 17.8% to 24.8%. Most remarkably, the number of very elderly people (i.e. aged 80+) will triplicate from 23.7 to 62.4 mill. Such a profound demographics change is calling for new care & assistance paradigms, since the current systems will be simply unsustainable.
The challenge is to maximise autonomy of old people, making them staying at home for as long as possible while respecting their dignity, yet ensuring highest safety standards during their activities of daily living. Further, the cost of formal care (e.g. nursing homes) in countries like France, Italy or Germany is extremely high (and expected to rise due to high demand), making products –such as MentorAge- designed to help people stay at home for longer, very attractive. The cost for a nursing home in France is quite high compared to the average pension, forcing families to cover the remaining costs. Despite the obvious difference from country to country, the shared common principle is that formal care is (and will be more) unsustainable, both in terms of cost and in terms of bed availability. Such an unaffordability creates a strong need for a solution for the “MentorAge for home”.
The objective of this project is not only to re-engineer the existing product based on user-centric vision, but also to address key non-technical aspects necessary for the go-to-market, from market analysis and definition of the business plan, to strategic marketing, to the definition of supply chain. Existing technical skills by the associate will be complemented with business competences that will be acquired through a tailored training program, making her/him capable of leading the launch of the new product in the “silver economy” market by the end of 2018.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

MentorAge system had been developed based on the requirements for the B2B market. During APOLLO, the MentorAge system was re-engineered in order to meet the B2C requirements. For the B2C requirements elicitation, NIVELY’s staff contacted a customer survey, involving about 50 volunteers, healthy, old adults. This user-centric approach made the target customers the main source of user and usability requirements for the “at home” version of the MentorAge® (the B2C version). Major re-engineering in the architecture has emerged, according to which a cloud server handles all the individual B2C clients, transforming the MentorAge at home to an “as a service” product. On the usability front, the user interface was redesigned, and after the interaction of the users with the mock-up, the UI was concluded to its final form.
Within this process, the innovation associate has focused, within APOLLO, in non-technical aspects necessary for the go-to-market (the software development was carried on by other staff members at Nively), from market analysis and definition of the business plan, to strategic marketing, to the definition of supply chain led to the final Business-Plan. The results are the elements necessary for the complete business planning of the new business line, that is being established after the end of APOLLO, corresponding to the “MentorAge® at home” product line. The key sets of the actual marketing documents and material that will be used from the marketing department have also been prepared.
The official launch of the “MentorAge for home” version was announced during the “Innov-Aging” exhibition fair in Ancona on 21-23 June 2018. Although this is earlier than the expected date and the product was not polished as a final product, Nively took this decision in order to start collecting feedback from its potential customers in order to accelerate the customer validation process. As a result, the official launch of the took place in the Q2 2018, a bit earlier than the expected date.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Nively was given the opportunity through APOLLO to re-think the functionality of MentorAge (B2B) and create value for the B2C market. To do so, Nively went back to the problem identification and definition, attempting to cover a wider target group. The initial problem, before the APOLLO project started, was “fall detection” while the current problem is “fall prevention”. The new version of MentorAge moves one step beyond the state of the art commercial approaches and contributes to the identification of daily activities patterns (time visiting the toilet, times opening the fridge, etc.) towards prevention. Thus, MentorAge for home targets not only older adult in need of care (or monitoring) but also healthy older adults caring about their health and the age-related problems. Early detection of cognitive decline symptoms would provide the opportunity for early administration of available treatments. Such therapies/interventions have been scientifically documented to be more effective when applied in the early stages of the cognitive issues as they may slow or even reverse cognitive decline, thereby improving the quality of patient’s life as well as the efficiency of the health care system. To this end, any monetary benefits and costs of MentorAge with preventing capacities must be measured with respect to the value of contributing to the timely and correct diagnosis.

The overall principle of MentorAge 2