Technologies for an Aging Society: A Systematic Review of “Smart Home” Applications

Summary

Objectives A “smart home” is a residence wired with technology features that monitor the well-being and activities of their residents to improve overall quality of life, increase independence and prevent emergencies. This type of informatics applications targeting older adults, people with disabilities or the general population is increasingly becoming the focus of research worldwide. The aim of this study was to provide a comprehensive review of health related smart home projects and discuss human factors and other challenges.

MethodsTo cover not only the medical but also the social sciences and electronics literature, we conducted extensive searches across disciplines (e.g., Medline , Embase , CINAHL, PsycINFO, Electronics and Communications Abstracts, Web of Science etc.). In order to be inclusive of all new initiatives and efforts in this area given the innovativeness of the concept, we manually searched for relevant references in the retrieved articles as well as published books on smart homes and gerontechnology

Results A total of 114 publications (including papers, abstracts and web pages) were identified and reviewed to identify the overarching projects. Twenty one smart home projects were identified (71% of the projects include technologies for functional monitoring, 67% for safety monitoring, 47% for physiological monitoring, 43% for cognitive support or sensory aids, 19% for monitoring security and 19% to increase social interaction). Evidence for their impact on clinical outcomes is lacking.

Conclusions The field of smart homes is a growing informatics domain. Several challenges including not only technical but also ethical ones need to be addressed.

 

MissingLinkText

Keywords

Home care services - physiologic monitoring - aged - frail elderly - dementia

 

 

MissingLinkText

• References

• 1 Bouma H. Gerontechnology: emerging technologies and their impact on aging in society. Stud Health Technol Inform 1998; 48: 93-104.
• 2 Rialle V, Duchene F, Noury N, Bajolle L, Demongeot J. Health “Smart” home: information technology for patients at home. Telemed J E Health 2002; 08 (04) 395-409.
• 3 Fisk MJ. Social Alarms to Telecare: older people’s services in transition. The Policy Press; 2003
• 4 Harper R. Inside the Smart Home. Springer Verlag; 2003
• 5 Charness N, Scaie KW. editors. Impact of Technology on Successful Aging. Springer Publishing Company; 2003
• 6 Marsh J. House Calls. Rochester Review 2002; 64 (03) 22-6.
• 7 Kidd CD, Orr R, Abowd GD, Atkeson CG, Essa I A, MacIntyre B. et al. The Aware Home: A Living Laboratory for Ubiquitous Computing Research. Proceedings of CoBuild’99. Position paper. October 1999
• 8 Cash M. Assistive technology and people with dementia. Reviews in Clinical Gerontology 2003; 13 (04) 313-9.
• 9 Chan M, Bocquet H, Campo E, Val T, Pous J. Alarm communication network to help carers of the elderly for safety purposes: a survey of a project. Int J Rehabil Res 1999; 22: 131-6.
• 10 Hensel BK, Demiris G, Courtney KL. Defining Obtrusiveness in Home Telehealth Technologies: A Conceptual Framework. J Am Med Inform Assoc 2006; 13 (04) 428-31.
• 11 Courtney KL, Demiris G, Hensel B. Needing Smart Home Technologies: The Perspectives of Older Adults in Residential Care. Int J Med Inform. (Under Review).
• 12 Moran R. The electronic home: Social and spatial aspects. Dublin: European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions; 1993
• 13 Tetley J, Hanson E, Clarke A. Older people, telematics and care. In: Warnes AM, Warren L, Nolan M. editors. Care services for later life: Transformations and critiques. London: Jessica Kingsley Publications; 2001: 243-58.
• 14 Wylde M, Valins MS. The impact of technology. In: Valins MS, Salter D. editors. Futurecare: New directions in planning health and care environments. Oxford: Blackwell Science; 1996: 5-24.
• 15 Stip E, Rialle V. Environmental Cognitive Remediation in Schizophrenia: Ethical Implications of “Smart Home” Technology. Can J Psychiatry 2005; 50 (05) 281-91.
• 16 Bonner S. Assisted Interactive Dwelling House. Proceedings of the 4th TIDE Congress, Helsinki, Finland: 1998
• 17 Junestrand S, Keijer U, Molin G, Tollmar K. User Study of Video Mediated Communication in the Domestic Environment with Intellectually Disabled Persons. Int J Hum Comput Interact 2003; 15 (01) 87-103.
• 18 Helal A, Mann W, Elzabadani H, King J, Kaddoura Y, Jansen E. Gator Tech Smart House: A Programmable Pervasive Space. IEEE Computer Magazine. 2005: 64-74.
• 19 Adlam T, Gibbs C, Orpwood R. The Gloucester Smart House bath monitor for people with dementia. Phys Med 2001; 17 (03) 189.
• 20 Demongeot J, Virone G, Duchêne F, Benchetrit G, Hervé T, Noury N. et al. Multi-sensors acquisition, data fusion, knowledge mining and alarm triggering in health smart homes for elderly people. C R Biol 2002; 325 (06) 673-82.
• 21 Cook DJ, Youngblood M, Heierman EO, Gopalratnam K, Rao S, Litvin A. et al. MavHome: an agent-based smart home. Proceedings of the First IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications (PerCom). 2003: 521-4.
• 22 Creating an Autonomy-Risk Equilibrium (CARE). http://www.elite-care.com/oatfield-tech.html Last accessed April 2006.
• 23 Intille SS, Larson K, Munguia ETapia, Beaudin J, Kaushik P. et al. Using a live-in laboratory for ubiquitous computing research. In: Fishkin KP, Schiele B, Nixon P, Quigley A. editors. Proceedings of PERVASIVE 2006, vol. LNCS 3968. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag; 2006: 349-65.
• 24 Woolham J, Frisby B. How techology can help people feel safe at home. Journal of Dementia Care 2002; 10 (02) 27-9.
• 25 Rialle V, Rumeau P, Ollivet C, Herve C. Smart Homes. In: Wootton R, Dimmick SL, Kvedar JC. editors. Home Telehealth Connecting Care Within the Community RSM Press; 2006
• 26 The Duke Smart Home Project. http://www. smarthome.duke.edu/Last Accessed April 2007.
• 27 Elger G, Furugren B. SmartBo-an ICT and computer based demonstration home for disabled people. In Proceedings 3rd TIDE Congress: Technology for Inclusive Design and Equality Improving the Quality of Life for the European Citizen. Helskinki, Finland: 1998
• 28 The National Knowledge Centre for Home Automation and Smart Living. Smartest Home. http://www.smart-homes.nl/engels/woning/index.html Last accessed, April 2007.
• 29 Demiris G, Skubic M, Keller J, Rantz MJ, Parker DOliver, Aud MA. et al. Nurse Participation in the Design of User Interfaces for a Smart Home System. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Smart Homes and Health Telematics. Belfast, N. Ireland: June; 2006: 66-73.
• 30 Sandström G, Gustavsson S, Lundberg S, Keijer U, Junestrand S. Long-term Viability of Home Network Systems – Business Modelling and Conceptual Requirements on Technology. In: Slona A. Proceedings of the Home-Oriented Informatics and Telematics (HOIT) 2005 IFIP Conference. New York: Springer; 2005: 71-86.
• 31 Kawarada A, Nambu M, Tamura T, Ishijima M, Yamakoshi K, Togawa T. Fully automated monitoring system of health status in daily life. Proceedings of the 22nd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society 2000; 01: 23-8.