REACH devices and smart furniture – technology optimisation including cost benefit calculations for 3 scenarios

04-02-20 Rongbo Hu 0 comment

The world’s population is aging at an unprecedented pace. Aging society is not only a severe crisis in the developed world, but also a rigorous challenge in emerging economies. Many age-related diseases are fostered by the lack of physical, cognitive, and social activities. Increasing the activity level has many benefits for the elderly and can improve their independence. Based on the analysis of the state-of-the-art and shortcomings of the current smart home solutions, the EU-funded research project REACH aims to develop a service system that will turn clinical and care environments into personalized modular sensing, prevention, and intervention systems that encourage the elderly to become healthy through various activities. To achieve that goal, the research team developed a series of smart furniture (PI²Us) that materialize the research concepts and functionality seamlessly into various environments. Specifically, the development process and the functionality testing results of the PI²Us are reported in detail. In addition, a simulated smart home solution concept (TRACK) integrating key assistive technologies developed is proposed to create a comprehensive interior living and care environment for elderly users. Due to its modularity and flexibility, the partial or entire solution can be easily adapted and rapidly deployed in different use case settings in Europe, which allows the project consortium to execute different testing activities. Furthermore, a cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is also conducted based on three smart home solutions using PI²Us in different contexts such as community, hospital, and care home.


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