GAiST

Ageing happily with smart living technology

Challenge and innovation

Demographic change is fuelling demand for age-appropriate housing. Current forecasts show that the number of people in need of care in Germany is expected to rise from 3.4 million in 2017 to 4.1 million in 2030. In addition, life expectancy is assumed to increase. The aim of social and economic policy is to enable the ageing and growing part of the population to live as long and independently as possible in their own homes. In addition, there is a shortage of skilled labour in inpatient and outpatient care, which is another obstacle to this objective.

In the area of Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) and Ambient Health Technologies (AHT), many projects have already been funded in the past, the majority of which have resulted in individual solutions. GAiST brings together the results and expertise of previous research: The aim is to create a hybrid overall system in which residents can decide which use cases are relevant to their individual needs.

The project is based on the equipment of flats in the Hospital zum Heiligen Geist (HzHG) in Hamburg as well as in the Siegburg senior centre with smart living technology and telemedical measurement systems. Specifically, smart home applications that have been tested in the care environment are being installed, such as ambient sensors and intelligent sockets. Additionally, telemedical measurement systems capture vital data. Once the senior citizens have moved in, a wide range of data is collected, including medical data and information about their individual living environment.

On this basis, GAiST is developing a healthcare platform with an associated data space that is fed from the various data sources.

Application and benefits

The platform provides the basis for the (further) development of smart living services and applications in the areas of comfort, safety and care efficiency. The aim is to improve the quality of life of elderly people in their own homes. This includes, for example, smart home systems that can provide mobility evaluations for residents based on geriatric assessments (visual and hearing ability, urinary incontinence and other factors). Additionally, applications for visual nutritional analysis serve to prevent frailty syndrome, and systems for telemedical monitoring allow a preventive early detection of potential heart diseases. Furthermore, AI-based safety management is used to support senior citizens in their everyday lives, for example by automatically switching off the cooker or iron to prevent fires or injuries.

The (partly AI-based) evaluation and processing of the generated data further enables early intervention for residents in emergency situations: Information can be passed on to relatives or medical staff in an appropriate context. Therefore, the platform has an integrated telematics infrastructure and is connected to a hospital information system (HIS). Data sovereignty always remains with the residents. They decide which data is forwarded to which departments. This factor is essential to achieve acceptance by residents concerned, as they often have a low level of technical affinity.

It is also important that access to the generated data is as simple and transparent as possible. This is why GAiST is developing apps with dashboards for residents and healthcare professionals. By using AI, the integrated displays are automatically adapted depending on the context. For patients, factors such as personal interest or cognitive abilities are taken into account.

These dashboards and the prototypes of the new and improved smart living systems will initially be tested in living labs under realistic conditions. In a next step, a field test will be carried out in the flats equipped in the project. The health platform as a whole will be evaluated as part of this process as well.

Project partners

OFFIS - Institut für Informatik, Materna Information & Communication SE, Universität Siegen, Seniorenzentrum Siegburg GmbH

Consortium leader

Hospital zum Heiligen Geist Stiftung bürgerlichen Rechts