Delivering elder-care environments utilizing TV-channel based mechanisms

In this paper, we present a smart environment for elderly. What makes the development of such system challenging is that the concept of smartness for elderly brings to the extreme the idea of invisibility of the technology. In our experience, elders are well-disposed to new technologies, provided that those will not require significant changes - namely, they are invisible - to their habits. Starting from this consideration, 200 caregivers responses were collected by questionnaire, so as to better understand elders' needs and habits. A system was subsequently developed allowing elders to access a number of "modern web services" as standard TV channels: at channel 43 there is the health status, at channel 45 the photos of the family, at 46 the agenda of the week, just to mention few of the available services. The content of such services is automatically generated by the smart devices in the environment and is managed by the caregivers (e.g., family members) by simple web apps. Fourteen families were asked to install the system in their house. The results of these experiments confirm that the proposed system is considered effective and user-friendly by elders.