Background and aims Population ageing is a typical phenomenon of developed countries with a great influence in their economy and society, with an increment on age-related expenditures. Disruptive solutions are needed to deploy new costeffective and sustainable solutions for aging well and independent living of our seniors. In this sense, new technological paradigms as IoT technologies and smart cities have the potential to become main drivers for innovation uptake. The purpose of this study is to describe a longitudinal cohort study in smart cities for assessing early frailty symptoms deploying an unobtrusive IoT-based system in the Madrid city. Methods A system was deployed in the Madrid city with the participation of 45 elderly users for an average of 71 weeks. Metrics were assessed by the available sensors in combination with the open data infrastructure of Madrid. Metrics include activity of the user, weekly visits pattern and transport daily usage pattern. System engagement was also monitored. Participants are assessed bimonthly with health and functional questionnaires. Results 45 older adults with a mean age of 79.1 years. Participants activity patterns monitor detected changes during potentially risky situations that usually were not reported by traditional assessment tools. Analysis of data collected enabled to identify absence of frailty (robust or post-robust status) Discussion and conclusions The results demonstrate the feasibility of engaging older adults with an IoT-based system and the successful collection of their activity metrics. Variation in the activity patterns may be a first sign of functional decline and enables to identify potential areas of early intervention.
Existing initiatives to improve physical, mental, and social condition of senior citizens, which in Europe fall under the name of Active and Healthy Ageing, are including technological paradigms as main driver for innovation uptake. Among these paradigms, Smart Cities and the Internet of Things are of utmost importance. However, these initiatives may benefit from unified visions, efforts, and frameworks when it comes to defining technological solutions that take the most of both paradigms. We have defined an iterative approach, which combines user centred design techniques, technological development approaches, and a multifaceted adaptation process, to define a solution for Active and Healthy Ageing that makes use of the two paradigms. The solution is being defined in the context of two research and innovation projects, City4Age and ACTIVAGE, during which a solution is going to be defined and evaluated in the city of Madrid. Results show how Smart Cities and Internet of Things contribute to the solution, from a user (user needs and use cases) and a service delivery (technologies, architecture, and suppliers) perspective. In conclusion, we find the cocreation framework extremely useful for the Active and Health Ageing domain, and the proposed implementation of it is functioning, although there is room for improvement.
Ambient assisted living (AAL) is a complex field, where different technologies are integrated to offer solutions for the benefit of different stakeholders. Several evaluation techniques are commonly applied that tackle specific aspects of AAL; however, holistic evaluation approaches are lacking when addressing the needs of both developers and end-users. Living labs have been often used as real-life test and experimentation environments for co-designing AAL technologies and validating them with relevant stakeholders. During the last five years, we have been evaluating AAL systems and services in the framework of various research projects. This paper presents the lessons learned in this experience and proposes a set of harmonized guidelines to conduct evaluations in living labs.
This manuscript presents the results of the trials that have been realized with student developers in the context of the AEGIS Integrated Project of the 7th European Framework. The aim was to evaluate the added value and the expected impact of two open-source toolkits that have been developed within AEGIS, aiming to support developers in the creation of accessible mobile applications, namely the Android Accessibility Designer Toolkit and the Accessibility Advisor tool. Furthermore, this evaluation process allowed collecting comments for further optimization of the tools before their final release. Evaluation concerned the assessment of the tools themselves by student developers participating in the trials, but also of the accessible applications that student developers were requested to develop with these tools, which were then provided to expert low-vision users for further assessment of their accessibility. Developers were equally distributed into two groups: one Control Group and one Experimental Group. Developers from both groups were given the same exercise and had to meet the same requirements. The Experimental Group tried the AEGIS toolkits for their developments, whereas the Control Group developers freely chose other, non-AEGIS tools. Results showed that 18 % total development time was saved when AEGIS tools were used, and that these developer tools have a big potential to help developers create easily accessible applications.
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