Abstract
Smart mobile devices, due to their ubiquitous nature and high level penetration in everyday life, can be a key component of an Ambient Assisted Living system to improve the quality of life of older people. This paper presents the development and evaluation of Senior App Suite, a system created for assisting seniors’ personal independence and social inclusion. The system integrates mobile computing combined with web and service-oriented technologies to offer a mobile application suite that seniors can easily use to access services, spanning various application areas such as social networking, emergency detection and overall well-being. The research hypothesis is that using such services can be beneficial for decreasing social isolation. There is quantitative indication that this assumption is realistic backed up also by the qualitative analysis from the user’s feedback derived during a pilot study (n = 22) suggesting that Senior App Suite can motivate people in new activities, maintain connection with social ties, give joy and self-confidence, and increase the frequency and quality of social interactions. Our contribution is a detailed methodology spanning the research, design, development, and evaluation of a solution that aims to improve the quality of life of seniors while addressing open issues identified in related initiatives.
Highlights
IntroductionIn spite of the fact that life span has increased in modern times, the cost of unsuccessful ageing is important both on healthcare systems and on individual level
We focused on users with basic knowledge of technology and an expressed interest or curiosity to use a digital tool for enhancing social inclusion and well-being
This paper described the development and evaluation of a system that provides a suite of services to assist and encourage its users to remain socially active, to strengthening their sense of safety and autonomy and to provide targeted information
Summary
In spite of the fact that life span has increased in modern times, the cost of unsuccessful ageing is important both on healthcare systems and on individual level. In this context, it has been recognized that among the most vulnerable social groups to be more at the risk of social exclusion, a factor of ill-feeling, are the elderly [2]. Social exclusion of elderly is mainly due to the effects of ageing on their health such as mobility problems, chronic diseases and disabilities of any kind as well as due to major developmental life events such as retirement or loss of loved persons. Social embargo may include exclusion from the following [3]: Informatics 2017, 4, 15; doi:10.3390/informatics4030015 www.mdpi.com/journal/informatics
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