Care services ecosystem for ambient assisted living

Abstract

Effective provision of care and assistance services in ambient assisted living requires the involvement and collaboration of multiple stakeholders. To support such collaboration, the development of an ecosystem of products and services for active ageing plays an important role. This article introduces a conceptual architecture that supports such care ecosystem. In order to facilitate understanding and better interrelate concepts, a 3-layered model is adopted: Infrastructure layer, Care and assistance services layer and Ambient Assisted Living ecosystem layer. A holistic perspective of ambient assisted living, namely considering four important life settings is adopted: (1) independent living; (2) health and care in life; (3) occupation in life and (4) recreation in life. The proposed architecture is designed in the context of a national Portuguese project and in accordance with the findings of a large European road mapping initiative on ICT and ageing.