Delivering care at home through a smarter environment

Abstract

One of the main challenges which society faces as our population continues to grow is the demand which is being placed of both health and social care provision. This is coupled with the need to develop new approaches to allow the general public to take more control of their own health and lifestyle management. The increased prevalence of technology usage, its reduced costs and improved processing and communication capabilities are all key factors which have resulted in new technology based solutions being investigated to address these challenges. Through a consolidation of sensing technology with the ability to record data, intelligent data analysis to interpret the data collected and personalised interfaces to support interaction with users, it has now become possible to deliver support both when and where it is required. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the technological motivations and solutions which have been developed to support home based care. Specifically the work presented will discuss the challenges associated with managing the data generated within a smart environment and from a technology perspective consider what are the future trends within the domain. © 2011 ICST.