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Designing Usafe: An Analysis System that Tracks Unusual Behavioural Patterns to Support Elderly People Living Safely at Home Alone
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- Author(s) / Creator(s)
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Many elderly live in their own homes as they age, but their specific challenges in achieving this goal are unknown.
The elderly may face daily frustrations and difficulties in their everyday activities. (Clark, Czaja, & Weber, 1990;
Rogers, Meyer, Walker, & Fisk, 1998). Unless the elderly take good care of themselves, they may become a burden
for their family members and could place them in an unhealthy situation. Almost 90% of older people living alone
express a keen desire to maintain their independence (Daniel B. Kaplan, Barbara J. Berkman , 2021). In the case
of older people living alone, health and welfare can often be promoted by using some current existing technologies
such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT), resulting in numerous benefits that enable people to
accomplish their goals.
Therefore, this could cause significant safety issues. Today, the lack of an elderly-serving information technology
ecosystem needs to develop because home maintenance is essential to support a safe and healthy environment for
the elderly. The goal of elderly-serving development is inclined to turn towards Smart Home Technology (SHT) when
thinking about how home automation, AI and IoT technologies can build an ecosystem of serving independent-living
elderly. For decreasing the physical risk of elderly who live independently and understand how these service-oriented
information technologies can benefit to elderly’s life, my graduate thesis project focuses on helping the elderly living
independently stay safer and healthier at home by monitoring and analyzing their unusual behavioural patterns within
the mobile application “system”, work on communicating that this is an overall system and the app is just one part of it
. Their family caregivers can utilize existing innovative technologies in AI and IoT to help care for their loved ones.
Family caregiver interviews were conducted to learn how family members usually take care of their elderly parents;
Conducting elderly interviews helped to learn about the needs, thoughts, demands, behaviours, and activities of
ageing people who live live independently; Expert interviews were approached from the fields of AI, Human-Computer
Interaction (HCI) and Older Adults & Family Caregiving to 1) inform how decision-making in AI can change the way
we behave our daily activities, 2) address the concept of service design and design thinking which utilize the available
resources of designers to seek innovative insights to address the current needs while creating solutions to everyday
problems and 3) specify a variety of information about caregivers for seniors including family responsibilities, social
interaction and living circumstances.
For the proposed design response, a monitoring mobile application as part of the Usafe system is designed for family
caregivers to monitor and analyze their elderly loved ones’ daily activities. From the elderly’s end, the ecosystem
of the Usafe platform I designed enables the elderly to live independently at home to stay healthy and safe. Usafe
begins with camera-based sensors placed throughout the elderly home and employs safety notification alerts to push
to family caregivers’ phones when the system catches any usual activities. Employing AI and IoT technologies, The
Usafe system can detect unusual activities and lead to safer living.
Technology can be frustrating and daunting for older adults who have not grown up with it as younger generations
have. However, the advantages of technology for the elderly who look to live independently are far-reaching, and
these creative innovations will inspire and allow individuals to live their better lives longer (Ageing, I., 2018). -
- Date created
- 2021-08-01
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- Type of Item
- Research Material