Taking Care of Our Elders through Augmented Spaces

As the population ages worldwide, more and more efforts are being made toward providing the best conditions possible for our elders. In these efforts, technology plays a very prominent role. We present our proposal for ambient-assisted living spaces where an underlying sensorial infrastructure, coupled with sentient visors, can aid individuals in many daily tasks that promote a safer and healthier lifestyle. We also discuss some scenarios based on our contributions that serves as a showcase of what can be accomplished.

I. Introduction

In the course of the next years, worldwide population will constantly increase its average life expectancy. We can expect elderly forming a large part of the population as we can witness in some countries. Elders have special needs given the fact that the aging process will come with a considerable decline in capabilities making them prone to falls, forget things, and others. As technology advances so do the opportunities to come up with new tools that can drastically improve the lifestyle of our elders. Along with the particular requirements in assisting the elders, we must think in how they will interact with the tools and how to take advantage of the solutions available today so our contributions can be applied in the short term.