Abstract
The active ageing paradigm aims to contribute to the expectation of a long, autonomous, independent and healthy life. Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) promotes the development of technological solutions that might have a key role in not only the optimization of support services for older adults but also in the mitigation of their disabilities. This article presents a systematic literature review of how the impact of AAL technologies, products and services is being assessed in terms of its health-related outcomes. The main objective of this article is to contribute to the understanding of how state-of-the-art AAL solutions might influence the health conditions of older adults. The method used to conduct this systematic literature review followed the guidelines of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA). The results show that the reviewed articles report not only the use of technological assessment instruments but also instruments to measure health-related outcomes such as quality of life.
Highlights
Health and social care are facing extraordinary challenges due to the changing patterns of disease, the demanding expectations of patients, financial restrictions and an ever-increasing ageing population.It is estimated that the number of people aged 60 and over globally will increase from 900 million in 2015 to 1.4 billion by 2030 and 2.1 billion by 2050 [1].The World Health Assembly of the World Health Organization (WHO) defined a strategy and an action plan on ageing and health for 2016–2020, considering the active ageing paradigm
Concerning the first research question—“what Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) solutions being reported in the literature to improve health conditions were evaluated in terms of health-related outcomes?”—the results show that a considerable number of articles classified as systems report on home monitoring solutions
A smaller number of articles refer to specific health care applications: Bono-Nuez et al [16] developed a tool to evaluate the quality of life of older adults and disabled people, Hamdan et al [17] proposed a biofeedback system to measure the quantity and quality of sleep, while Fratu et al [21] developed a supervising and monitoring system for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and mild dementia patients
Summary
The World Health Assembly of the World Health Organization (WHO) defined a strategy and an action plan on ageing and health for 2016–2020, considering the active ageing paradigm. For this strategy and action plan, the WHO envisages a world in which everyone can live a long, autonomous, independent and healthy life [2]. In this context, it is widely agreed upon that the adoption of technological solutions is fundamental to the optimization of support services and for the mitigation of disabilities; those resulting from the natural ageing process. Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) is one of the resources available and refers to intelligent technologies, products and services embedded in the physical environment and aimed at the support of older adults, promoting their autonomy, independence, safety, social participation and well-being [3]
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