Homecare & Technologies Panel

Panel: Homecare & Technologies – 7th December (2nd day) 16:15 – 17:15

  • E-VITA, EU-Japan Virtual Coach for Smart Ageing

Prof. Rainer Wieching, University of Siegen

ABSTRACT  

Background:

Virtual coaching can play an important role in sustaining Active and Healthy Ageing (AHA) through early risk detection and tailored intervention in smart living environments. However, current technologies are not easily customized to individual needs, provide limited interaction, and are often intrusive.

Aims and Relevance:

Based on an excellent international cooperation between Europe and Japan, e-VITA proposes an innovative approach to virtual coaching that addresses the crucial domains of AHA: cognition, physical activity, mobility, mood, social interaction, leisure, and spirituality, thus empowering older adults to better manage their own health and daily activities, resulting in improved wellbeing and improved stakeholder collaboration. The e-VITA virtual coach will provide individualized profiling and personalized recommendations based on big data analytics and social-emotional computing beyond the state-of-the-art.

Approach:

The virtual coach will detect preventative potentials and risks in the user’s daily living environment by collecting data from external sources and non-intrusive sensors and will provide support through natural interactions with 3D-holograms, emotional objects, or robotic technologies using multimodal and spoken dialogue technology, advanced knowledge graph representations and data fusion. Interoperability and data privacy will be guaranteed using FIWARE and a federated data AI platform.

Proof of concept:

A support system will be provided to enable the elderly users to learn and use the virtual coaching system. The coaching system will be deployed and evaluated in the living environments of healthy older adults in France, Germany, Italy, and Japan to assess its feasibility and efficacy. The results of e-VITA include also new standards and policies beyond technology, and will be consequently exploited and transferred across Europe, Japan and worldwide.

  • Ambulatory physiological measure (stress identification)

Prof. Dan Istrate, BMBI UMR 7338 Laboratory – Université de Technologie de Compiègne

Abstract:

The new embedded connected sensor allows physiological data measure in ambulatory conditions (home and everyday life) but need new signal processing algorithms in order to treat data sample loss and imprecisions. This work try to detect in real time the stress presence using different physiological signals. We have recorded a first data base containing relaxation and stress-controlled period of 70 persons (all ages). The recorded signals were: ECG and PPG for the heart monitoring, EDA, EMG ; all these signals was enriched with two surveys and two cortisol measures. A new algorithm of data preprocessing with interpolation and first results will be presented. This work was realized in the framework of the PhD of Mouna Benchekroun conducted by Dominique Lenne (Heudiasyc-UTC), Vincent Zalc (BMBI-UTC) and me.

  • Research and Living Lab activity relative to Smart home and dependance.

Prof. Jérome Boudy, IMT, Telecom –Sud Paris

Abstract :

This presentation addresses our research path for the last twenty years in remote care monitoring of actimetric and vital parameters relative to the person living alone at home with a specific target on fall events detection. This led successively to design and elaborate an ambulatory terminal for fall detection and continuous vital monitoring (pulse), then later to combine it with other modalities like presence PIR infrared sensors and acoustic sounds capture and detection to improve falls detection precision, sensitivity and specificity, first in the case of hard falls (with high accelerations) but also of soft falls (with lower ones) thanks to multimodal heterogeneous data fusion based on Belief Theory Dynamic Evidential Networks. Finally we move from the fall detection problem to the fall prevention one through discriminant actimetry features analysis in a full ambulatory mode  to improve the prediction of potential pre-frailty status. This latter domain opens a new field of research for coming years namely in the domain of the frailty prevention through the walk, actimetry and ADL analysis, namely within the H2020 project e-Vita between Europe and Japan (Prof. R. Wieching). All these works were the fruit of close collaborations with UTC in Compiègne, Prof. D. Istrate, and SAMU-92 in Garches (emergency unit of APHP), Dr. M. Baer.

  • Innovative assistive technology solutions to improve care delivery, quality of life and independent living

Rigaud Anne-Sophie, Pino M; Piccoli M, Dacunha S, Berger E, Charlieux B, Palmier C, Bruley R, Lenoir H, Université de Paris, EA 4468, APHP, Hopital Broca, Memory Resource and Research Centre of de Paris-Broca-Ile de France, F-75013 Paris, France.

Abstract

The development of innovative assistive technology solutions intended to improve care delivery, quality of life and independent living among older adults has considerably increased over the last years. Undoubtedly, good innovation practices in this field require both, placing older adult’s needs at the core of the process and promoting cooperation between different stakeholders, such as older adults, informal caregivers, healthcare professionals, technology firms, service providers, funding bodies, and policy makers. The Living Lab approach offers a suitable framework for this purpose because of its focus on co-creation, acknowledging primary end-users (older adults, informal and formal caregivers). its emphasis on creating and validating solutions in real-life environments, and its potential to promote collaborative partnerships in order to reach coherence in care planning and implementation, decision-making processes, and related policies. We will discuss the benefits and challenges of applying Living Lab methodologies for innovation in this context (general conditions, methodologies for involving older adults in the co-creation process, description of real-life environments, management of stakeholders, key outcomes, ethical and legal considerations). We will also examine areas for further development and research for Living Labs working in the field of ageing care. We will give examples of Living Lab use in research projects such as the E-VITA Project.