Assistive Technology for Ageing

Post date: 18-Nov-2014 05:47:28

Population ageing has become a global phenomenon as a result of life longevity and declining

birth rate of modern society, especially in developed regions. The trend will be

more severe and cause larger impact on our society in the coming years. The number

of people aged 65 or older is projected to grow from an estimated 524 million in 2010 to

nearly 1.5 billion in 2050, with most of the increase in developing countries. Europe

is currently holding the highest proportion of ageing population. As the demographic

statistics reports [3], the amount of population over 60 years old is 24.5 % of the total

of Europe. The growing number of elderly population will be accompanied with rapid

increasing number of people with mental and physical impairments as well as various

age-related chronic disease such as, cognitive decline, hyperactivity disorder, mental retardation,

autism spectrum disorders and motor handicap etc . In the USA., more

than 84% of senior citizens over 65 are living with one or more chronic disease. Dementia

is an age-related disease that about 5% of people over 65 are suffering from dementia

(Alzheimer`s disease is a most common one of dementia). It usually lead to problems

to the elderly such as impairments in memory, attention, judgement, and decision making,

often profoundly a.affect a person`s ability to perform everyday activities, and thus

signi.cantly reduces his or her quality of life [5]. In another study [6] which focused on

the ability to perform speci.c activities of daily living (ADLs), over 27% of communityresident

Medicare bene.ciaries over age 65 in 2009 had di.culty in performing one or

more ADLs and an additional 12.7% reported di.culties with instrumental activities of

daily living (IADLs). By contrast, 95% of institutionalized Medicare bene.ciaries had

di.culties with one or more ADLs and 74% of them had di.culty with three or more

ADLs. IADLs include preparing meals, shopping, managing money, using the telephone,

doing housework, and taking medication.

The demographic change towards ageing population will lead to daunting challenges

for our society and healthcare systems. According to [7], up to 19 million population

give primary assistance with daily activities to their elderly or dependent relatives. 70

% of individuals can not live independently and need activity assistance and healthcare

from caregiver. In 2012, 15.4 million caregivers provided an estimated 17.5 billion hours

of unpaid care, valued at more than $216 billion [5]. The financial costs of dementia are

formidable too. Costs of caring for people with Alzheimer's And other dementia as will

soar from An estimated $203 billion from 2013 to a projected $1.2 trillion per year by

2050 in the USA. In total, dementia is estimated to cost the UK 23 billion a year. It

estimated that the global cost of dementia in 2010 at $604 billion which is 1% of global

GDP and it is likely that these costs will rise sharply in proportion to the number of

elderly people in the coming years. Therefore, this phenomena of continuously increasing

of older population will bring huge burden and stress to the families and society [8].

As consequent of the increasingly ageing population, it is motivation to .find solution

to improve the living condition and develop more robust but low cost healthcare systems

to reduce the burden to society. Information and Communication Technology could play

a remarkable role to conquer this challenge. From last decades, the research on ICT enabled

support for independent living of the elderly has been drawing great attention

from the communities and governments. There are many potential areas where ICT can

be significant.cant to counteract the .affects of population ageing. The term of Ambient Assist

Living becomes a field to investigate innovative technologies to provide assistance as well

as healthcare and rehabilitation to senior people with impairment, especially for people

with some cognitive impairment living on their own. These innovative applications enable

them to live independently, comfortably, stately and stay healthily throughout their life pan, namely 

ageing well-being. In some point of view, AAL technology is based on the

concept of ambient intelligence (AmI). AmI was coined by the Information Society Technology

(ISTAG) of European Commission in 2001 [9]. AAL has been distinguished from

AmI to form a subject devoted to provide personalized, adaptive, pervasive, unobtrusive,

and anticipatory services in living environment. AAL application make use of ICT based

technologies such as sensor network, robotics, smart home, ubiquitous computing etc.

to undertake services that improve the life quality of the elderly. In a smart home, the

system monitors the activities of dweller`s daily life and provide actions such as home

automation, medication reminder, health warning and safety/risk management etc. Some

service robots as well as intelligent vehicles, like intelligent wheelchair, are employed to

facilitate daily life and contribute to caregiver's performance.

[1] B. Mirkin and M. B. Weinberger, \The demography of population ageing," 2010,

Accessed on Dec. 5, 2013. [Online]. Available: http://www.un.org/esa/population/

publications/bulletin42 43/weinbergermirkin.pdf

[2] WHO, \Global Health and Aging," National Institute on Aging, National Institutes

of Health, Tech. Rep., 2011, Accessed on Dec. 5, 2013. [Online]. Available:

http://www.who.int/ageing/publications/global health.pdf

[3] Department of Economic and Social A.airs Population Division United Nations ,

\World population ageing: 1950-2050," 2013, Accessed on Dec. 5, 2013 . [Online].

Available: http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/worldageing19502050

[4] Population Reference Bureau, \Communication from the commission to the

european parliament and the council on a european initiative on alzheimers

disease and other dementias," 2009, Accessed on Dec. 5, 2013. [Online].

Available: http://ec.europa.eu/health/ph information/dissemination/documents/

com2009 380 en.pdf

[5] The Alzheimer`s Association, \2013 alzheimer`s disease facts and .gures," 2013,

Accessed on Dec. 5, 2013 . [Online]. Available: http://www.alz.org/downloads/

facts .gures 2013.pdf

[6] U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, \A Pro.le of Older

Americans: 2011," 2011, Accessed on Dec. 5, 2013. [Online]. Available:

http://www.aoa.gov/Aging Statistics/Pro.le/2011/docs/2011pro.le.pdf

[7] Population Reference Bureau, \America`s aging population," 2011, Accessed on

Dec. 5, 2013. [Online]. Available: http://www.prb.org/pdf11/aging-in-america.pdf

[8] Alzheimers Disease international, \World alzheimer report 2012-overcoming the

stigma of dementia," 2012, Accessed on Dec. 5, 2013. [Online]. Available:

http://www.alz.org/documents custom/world report 2012 .nal.pdf

[9] EU IST Advisory Group , \Ambient intelligence: from vision to reality," 2003.

[10] H. Nakashima, H. Aghajan, and J. Augusto, Handbook of ambient intelligence and

smart environments. IOS, 2010.