Smart Rollators as a Cost-Effective Solution for Personalized Assistance Healthcare Ecosystem in Elderly Communities

Abstract

Nowadays, the ratio of elderly people per caregiver is increasing, and the statistics confirm that this trend will continue for decades. Healthcare systems need to change to support this unbalance. The have to move to enhanced, value-added and cost-effective services to patients, professionals and caregivers. Industry is already involved in this process, supported by new technologies such as artificial intelligence, deep learning, data analytics and robotics. A parallel approach for Healthcare -called Health 4.0- now opens new opportunities. Quality and personalized services require large amounts of data, which needs to be gathered in a transparent way. Assistive devices are already extensively used among the aging people. Transforming them into smart assistive devices provides the opportunity to monitor different parameters along their usual routines. In this paper, we explore the use of smart rollators in a ROS2 ecosystem to provide user condition services to the caregivers in order to reason about gait abnormalities and functional fitness conditions.