| Abstract |
The recent advances in ambient and wearable sensor technology as well as an increased interest in the modelling and inference of acitivites of daily living, is promising to revolutionise health monitoring in primary care and improve the conditions for elder independent living. More specifically, ubiquitous, non-intrusive, and affordable ICT solutions have great potential in assisting formal care providers and family carers in the early detection of signs of cognitive impairment in elderly people through a constant and automated evaluation of activities of daily living at home. Timely identification of mental decline is of utmost importance in designing effective care plans that guarantee that elder people can continue living safely and securely in their familiar environment and that professional as well as family carers can provide well-measured assistance.
The SENSEV project endeavours to develop a scalable, interoperable, and secure ICT solution for home care monitoring and intervention prescription that is based on the evaluation methods that professional caretakers use. SENSEV is intended for familiar and professional carers, who will then be able to evaluate the olders¿ evolution in a more effective and systematic way.
The system will build on existing health care sensor technologies to provide the large amounts of data from heterogeneous sources needed for a robust modelling of a person¿s activities, the so-called activities of daily living. The streaming data will allow the activity inference engine to continually compute activity patterns based on a set of activity models that are adapted to the particular care context and case evaluation targets.
The SENSEV tool will be based on the evaluation methods used by professional carers to track the cognitive and physical state of older people. We will identify what activities need to be monitored, and what parameters need to be considered in order the effectively evaluate the impairment of the patient. Based on the results of the inference algorithms, the SENSEV tool will provide carers with near real-time analysis and thus the possibility to alter or adjust the intervention recommendations made by the system. We will take particular care of designing user interfaces that are appropriate for service users and informal carers in the given home setting. |
