Abstract
Elderly population in the world is rising fast and the rise is even faster for India due to the continuous rise in life expectancy. Delivery of health services to the elderly Indian population in rural areas, which is about 80% of the total elderly Indians, is a big challenge. An effective solution to the problem lies in developing assistive systems and devices based on modern technologies and designed to support or assist the elderly persons in having healthy, comfortable and dignified life in the society. This paper presents major challenges of elderly people. Some of the major research works already carried out on assistive systems and devices are summarily reviewed. Some further assistive systems/devices are proposed and desirable features for them are suggested. Novel concept of integrating the proposed assistive systems/devices into a single integrated system to serve the elderly users better is presented.
Highlights
The population of elderly people is getting considerable attention in the 21st century, especially in regard to the problems faced by them and to the possibility of using assistive technologies, systems and devices to mitigate the same
The main goal of research in assistive technologies is to develop assistive systems and devices that must be highly helpful to the elderly persons in leading a near normal life
Communication between intelligent master controller unit (IMCU) and the five assistive devices, which will supposedly move with the elderly user, is proposed to take place through a slave control unit (SCU), which will move with the user
Summary
The population of elderly people is getting considerable attention in the 21st century, especially in regard to the problems faced by them and to the possibility of using assistive technologies, systems and devices to mitigate the same. Reference [4] links the growth of elderly people in India with demography and gives some projections for the 30 years. It says that a large percentage (30%) of the elderly is below the poverty line, and about 80% of them are in the rural areas, making delivery of any health related services to this population a big challenge. Older persons can get some psychological benefit in the face of stressful life events with help of assistive systems. These systems have been categorized as Architectural/. The last section concludes the work and lists out some of the challenges for future research work and suggests some directions for further research work on assistive systems and devices for the elderly
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