Support system of activities of daily living for the elderly

Abstract

People with severe disabilities use many assistive devices, such as computers and robots, to improve their quality of life. However, the elderly use only limited assistive devices, such as canes, wheelchairs, walkers, or handrails. This state is caused by two characteristics of the elderly: first, the elderly generally have difficulties in learning the operation of new equipment, especially equipment with digital interfaces. Secondly, the elderly have limited desire to improve their lives if it takes considerable effort. To solve these problems, speech recognition, gesture recognition and power assist technology have been proposed for various useful devices. Virtual reality technology and pet robots may encourage the elderly to use assistive devices to improve the quality of their lives.