My PHD Blog (Entries tagged as assisted living)

What is assisted living

nospam@example.com (Mark) — Thu, 25 Sep 2014 06:00:00 +0000

After thinking about the definition of smart homes and smart buildings, see this blog entry, I started to think about other terms that are likely to be used in this field. So, how about assisted living?
"The Assisted Living Federation of America defines assisted living as a long-term care option that combines housing, support services and health care, as needed. Assisted living is designed for individuals who require assistance with everyday activities such as meals, medication management or assistance, bathing, dressing and transportation". (Definition from http://www.alfa.org/alfa/Assisted_Living_Information.asp ) It appears that this is a sort of generally accepted definition so this will do for now.

The Merriam Webster website defines assisted living as "a system of housing and limited care that is designed for senior citizens who need some assistance with day-to-day activities but are not sufficiently incapacitated to require care in a nursing home and that usually includes private quarters, meals, personal assistance, housekeeping aid, monitoring of medications, and nurses' visits". Obviously this is not the right definition for me as I am not working with the elderly so I need to steer clear of definitions that go off in that particular direction; this said however, I will be looking at systems that are used for elderly to gain inspiration for what could be useful for younger people.

Another thing that I have found is that assisted living can mean a single dwelling or indeed a collection of dwellings in one location that can be supervised by both medical and non-medical staff to ensure that the individuals who live there can be cared for in their own homes rather than in care homes. Again I am not looking at a system that can be used in multiple dwellings, but it may be that the final system could easily be converted for this purpose.

The future of healthcare?

nospam@example.com (Mark) — Tue, 16 Sep 2014 11:45:10 +0000

While looking at the news on the University web site I came across an article on a system called RITA. This stands for RESPONSIVE INTERACTIVE ADVOCATE. The idea is to create a system with a friendly avatar and voice that can be interacted with for help with many different things, from healthcare to just having a conversation to help alleviate loneliness. An interesting idea but I can see that some may have problems with using technology to take over from the human touch. However, with the money being cut so drastically I think people will have to accept that things have to change.Your comments are welcome.

Have a look at this page

MALCOLM

nospam@example.com (Mark) — Tue, 16 Sep 2014 02:55:00 +0000

OK, you are probably wondering why this is called MALCOLM and, no, I am not yelling the name out for some perverse reason. MALCOLM stands for:
Mapping Assisted Living Capability Over La Manche which I am sure you know that La Manche is the name the French give to what we in the UK call The English Channel.

So, what is it all about then and why am I writing about it? Well, the important bit is the "assisted living" bit. I am going to an event in October that is talking about a project, called MALCOLM that, and I quote from the website, "will map the assisted living capabilities* in the coastal regions either side of the Channel. The mapping will be conducted using a standardised methodology so that direct comparisons can be made between the regions.

*For the purpose of this project, we define Assisted Living as the development and use of sensor and information and communication technologies (ICT) to facilitate the remote delivery of care and support to people to improve their quality of life and allow them to live as independently as possible in the lowest intensity care setting, consistent with their needs and wishes."

As the project is looking at assisted living systems I think that I can make some very useful connections, hence the travel along the south coast of England to Maidstone in Kent to attend. The website for information is to be found here

The event is taking place on the 16th October, I will put some more info up here as I find it and will, hopefully, remember to write up the day once I have been.