ICT systems and services for Ageing Well: Identification and assessment of an important set (package) of ICT services for active ageing and independent living

Abstract

Currently, the main care model for supporting elderly people living alone at home is based on informal and formal caregivers assistance. Considering the demographic changes of older population, which increases rapidly, this model is expected to pose major challenges both in the economy as well as the society. To address these challenges, there is growing attention for assistive technologies to support seniors stay active and independent, for as long as possible, in their preferred home environments. ICT systems for Ageing Well are among those initiatives. The work presented in this paper is based on the context of the Miraculous-Life project. It focuses on the identification and assessment, in terms of usefulness, technical feasibility and constrains, of a set (package) of services that an ICT system for Ageing Well should support. The results extracted from our study and provided in this paper can be considered by other projects working in the area of Ageing Well and assist the consortium to gain an insight about i) which ICT services can provide the greater benefit to the elderly and their caregivers’ QoL, and thus reduce time and resources needed to be allocated for identifying, from scratch, the services that will be supported by their system, and ii) the technical perspective of the ICT services and prioritize their development, as well as, facilitate better allocation of their resources, to minimize any risks that could result in failure to implement these services in the framework of their project. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016.