4 subasi ehome-ifa-prague-v03 short

Experiences from Assessing Daily

Activities to Increase Safety and

Comfort of Older Persons Living Alone

Paul Panek, Peter Mayer, Özge Subasi

and Wolfgang L. Zagler

Institute for Design and Assessment of Technology

Vienna University of Technology

IFA 11th Global Conference on Ageing

28 May – 1 June 2012, Prague, Czech Republic

Content

Introduction and Aim

Approach

Results from Fieldtrials

Conclusion

Introduction & Aim

Many research papers available about AAL systems and activity monitoring

– But unclear, to what extent such systems can be applied in real life

Therefore - Aim of eHome project:

– Demonstration of practical usefulness

– In daily use

– Basic system with ZigBee based sensors was developed

Approach

Daily life follows certain schedules

– Given by routine

– Following social and biological rhythms

eHome monitors continuously

– Assessing activities in fixed time slices (e.g. 1 hour)

– Triggering supportive or emergency actions if significant deviations

– Keeps private data protected inside the user’s home

Objective of eHome: Improving safety and comfort of older persons living alone at home

Approach

eHome system uses

– Sensors connected via ZigBee

– Storing data in a database

– Data being processed in a small central

unit

– Situated at user’s home ( privacy of

data)

– Connected to the Internet.

Approach

Event triggered expert system can raise

alerts based on:

– Time of activities

(e.g. rising from bed compared to daily history)

– Duration of selected activities

(e.g. nightly leaving of bed)

– Frequency of activities

(e.g. reduction in cooking, hygiene)

Approach

Assumption of eHome is:

– Even by applying a rather coarse monitoring by

a small set of sensors a sufficient insight into the

user’s activity can be reached

– Even if “better” and “more” sensors would be

possible this was avoided in order to

Increase perspective for economic exploitation

Improve the to-be-expected user acceptance

Field Trials

Extensive evaluation with

– 5 research prototype systems

– installed in 11 homes of older persons

– over a total time of 18 months

Field Trials

ZigBee Sensors for

– Door / window

– Acceleration & floor

vibration

(e.g. for fall detection)

– Temperature

– Cooking plate temp.

(infrared)

– Movement (passive

infrared)

– Light

Impressions from Field Trials

Local User Interface

– Touch-Screen Terminal

without typical PC look

– Fits to furniture

– Easy to use

– Video telephone

– Smart-Home Controls

– Emergency Call

– Internet Browser

e-HOME – reminders & call for help

e-HOME – easy to use (video) phone

Field Trials

Results

System was able to classify “usual

behaviour” over time. This can be used in

different ways:

– Unusual sudden changes (e.g. not leaving bed in

the morning) triggering alarm

– mid-term and long-term trends present

changes to care persons to let them judge about

the meaning and severity of recognised

changes.

Presence in living room 9 July

Results

The system is able to learn / adapt over time its

threshold parameters

Remark: Even right from the beginning the system

is able to work with initial values important for

practical use!

By adapting over time it will improve performance

Conclusion

Despite needs for improvement there is evidence

that the system actually is considered by users and

experts to have the potential to bring significant

benefits in supporting older persons and carers.

eHome prototype currently is used in LLM (CIP)

and KSERA (FP7) project

Costs for low quantities of basic eHome system

with 3 multi-sensor boxes are 1,500 Eur.

eHome in demo apartment Schwechat

Acknowledgements

Supported by: Austrian Federal Ministry for

Transport, Innovation and Technology

(FIT-IT contract number 815195).

Consortium: TU Vienna, Ceit Raltec, Kapsch

Carriercom and Treventus Mechatronics.

For questions: [email protected]

Web site: www.aat.tuwien.ac.at/ehome/