
It happens when you least expect it: A sudden circulatory weakness makes an elderly person dizzy and results in a fall. But the intelligent apartment becomes active immediately: In a realistic simulation across two fair booths, visitors can experience how the senior citizen's walking aid recognizes the accident, how the home automation system attempts on its own to communicate with the patient, and how it finally alerts the "Emergency Medical Dispatch Office". Medical experts estimate that, in the regional environment of IESE, this technique could already be used every day to save accident victims from suffering the more serious consequences of an accident.
The Assisted Living Lab, which is being introduced at the booths of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and BMBF, is indeed a very special kind of laboratory environment. What appears to be hardly different from a normal living environment is equipped throughout with sophisticated sensors and electronic data processing. The objective of this effort: An apartment that proactively reacts in case of emergencies and that offers its resident the correct help at precisely the correct time, depending on the situation.
Equipment that captures data, such as RFID chips in the floor covering, motion sensors in the rooms, or everyday-type items equipped with sensors, are only parts of a much more complex overall system. The real core of the system is the software-supported networking and interpretation of the data provided by the sensors in accordance with current medical knowledge. Only this combination makes practical, context-sensitive support from the home automation system realistic.
The research performed at Fraunhofer IESE in the area of assisted living systems concentrates on the systems engineering of environments that independently recognize and assess situations on their own, based on networked sensor data. In a very general sense, this means that people are relieved of routine tasks and thus have more time for creativity. Furthermore, dangers can be averted. This should lead to cost savings not only in the health sector. Elderly persons and those requiring care will benefit from this in a particular way through better care" an obligation for society, whose importance should increase due to the demographic changes in society.
From Medical News Today
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