The demographic challenge of many regions of planet earth is the increased proportion of elderly persons versus younger persons.
A family of technologies to alleviate the burden and make live for elderly humans enjoyable is AAL, active assisted living, or technologies supporting elderly persons in their home.
What are these features helping, and what priority for each of the features? For instance: panic button, activity detection, fall detection, food use monitoring, shower use monitoring, communication intensity and frequency, number of visits received, etc
As one of the ‘aged’ but still active, there is no question that both physical and mental activity are essential to fulfilling lives for the elderly. Much depends, however, on the health and well-being of each elderly person as to what technologies might help their day to day living. Seeing and hearing about the use and effectiveness of ‘panic buttons’, I would question their effectiveness. Often the individual forgets to have them on and, at the time of a fall, cannot reach them on the table or sideboard. Many don’t put them on because they get in the way. Lenses for macular degeneration do help in reading, but even then an elderly person has difficulty focusing with them; good lighting is often much more effective.
i would suggest that there is definitely a place for technologies, but that human contacts are the best way to check on welfare and help in keeping the elderly active. Having said that, I do worry about the instability of wheelchairs, particularly motorised ones and small wheels cannot cope with kerbs and potholes.
your question deserves a lot of thought and I hope to return to it later
George Strachan