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Project Details


Keywords: [Assisted Living] [Supporting Older People]
Name: USEFIL - Unobtrusive Smart Environments For Independent Living
Start Date: 1st Nov 11
End Date: 31st Oct 14
Total Project Fund: 4,630,000Euros
Background: There has been considerable interest in the last few years in developing systems to monitor the health and well-being of older and disabled people living at home. Such systems can be used to support people to complete daily tasks and to collect real-time information about their health status and whether or not they are adhering to medical recommendations or therapies. Many of the early applications of such systems use bespoke technology, which can be expensive to develop and which often requires specialist equipment.
Description: The aim of this project is to develop advanced but affordable and unobtrusive home monitoring and web communication solutions. Researchers plan to use low costs 'off the shelf' technology which will not require retro-fitting and will be almost invisible once installed. The concepts will be validated in a wide variety of residential environments in three different field trial studies.
Objective: To provide efficient and effective means of care delivery and increased adherence to medical recommendations and treatments by older patients. This should extend the time that older people can live independently in their homes while limiting increases in public expenditure.
Progress: As of December 2012: the project has examined state of the art of technology, socio-economic situations and existing standards and best practices connected with the development and deployment of the USEFIL system. The needs and requirements of target users have been identified and this has formed the basis for the overall system design. Currently, the project is producing the individual modules that will form the USEFIL system. The project will also develop a suite of services on top of the USEFIL platform which will be trialled with target groups.
General Info: Project consortium includes: • National Centre of Scientific Research “Demokritos”, Greece; • Aristotelio Panepistimion Thessalonikis, Greece; Universiteat Bremen, Germany; • Fraunhofer—Gesellschaft, Germany; TP Vision, Netherlands; • Maccabi Healthcare Services, Israel; • Teknologian Tutkimuskeskus VTT, Finland.
Web Page: view website

Organisations Involved In This Project


The main contact(s) for this project are:

Organisation Name Type Tel Town Contact
Institute of Digital Healthcare - Warwick University
Academic
 02476 151341
 Coventry
 Professor Christopher James

Funding for this project includes a contribution from:

Organisation Name Type Tel Town
European Commission - FP7
 Grant Making Body