CARING FOR THE ELDERLY
IN THE INFORMATION SOCIETY ERA

• Prime Contractor: ATKOSoft SA
• Budget: 4.300.000 EURO
• EU Program: TELEMATICS FOR THE DISABLED & ELDERLY
• Implementing Organizations: The RISE Consortium
• Project Duration: 3 years

Project Mission

Subject

Although over the years the advent of technology and in particular of Telematics has been significant, elderly people continue to live in islands of isolation due to social and physical boundaries and limitations. Technology has nowadays evolved to such a degree, that it is capable and mature to be put to service the needs of this special group of people in an optimal way. It can be used effectively to brake these barriers and to allow elderly people to improve the quality of their everyday lives, forming social groups of common interests, irrespective of geographical locations.

Short Description

Elderly people have entered a period of their lives which is characterized by problems such as deteriorating health and physical condition, feelings of loneliness, isolation, and of being dependent on others. They also have too much spare time, that in many cases is not filled with any interesting or particular pass-time activity.
Although over the years the advent of technology and in particular of Telematics has been significant, elderly people continue to live in islands of isolation due to social and physical boundaries and limitations.

The RISE goal is to use the Information Society means, as a vehicle for breaking the current isolation of the elderly and for improving their quality of life. Also for preventing the expected larger isolation of the elderly people, that the wide usage of Information Society means and techniques may result in.

The services that will be offered by the project being proposed are aimed to all the categories of elderly persons (Persons being self-catered, persons living alone or within the family, etc.) and are Services for informing and catering for the elderly, Health Services and Services for safe living at home. These services will be offered in centers like Elderly Houses, Centers of Closed Protection and at home. They will aim towards the development of a system that will be open to the advances of state-of-the-art technology, that will comprise a group of specialized software programs (closely interrelated and co-operating) and will use the Telematics Infrastructure together with advanced ways of communication.

Its aim will be the - as full as possible - coverage of the requirements that guarantee an improvement of the autonomy and the quality of life of the elderly, and also the full coverage of the administrative requirements and the increase of the efficiency and effectiveness of the organizations which offer and support the independent living of the elderly. Users of the systems, besides the elderly, will be the professionals that are related to the field of the services being offered: Doctors, Nurses, Therapists and helping personnel, Social Workers, Special Trainers etc. The project being proposed will not be designed to be used only by persons of the third age, but also by persons of special needs or groups of persons that suffer from disabilities, by adapting in the future specialized Interfaces. It should be also born in mind that the level of the education and of requirements of the elderly will be different in the end of our century and at the beginning of the new century that is coming.

During the RISE development, use will be made of Information and Telematics Services and Equipment, such as multimedia, health telematics, smart-cards and portable computers for the provision of an integrated services to the elderly. These services will involve Telemedicine, Homecare Support, Various Teleservices (Entertainment, Human Communication & Special Interest Groups Support), Home System Aspects.

Project Characteristics

Users involved There is very strong user presence in RISE, representing all types or user groups namely beneficiaries (elderly), intermediate users, health visitors, social workers, Doctors, service and information providers etc. Each group actively participates, express its User Requirements and audits the results through the appropriate management structure.

Technologies and/or approach used Telematics, Multimedia, various teleservices, DB connection over Web, WWW Pages, multimodal patient records will be used to introduce the elderly in the Information Society Era and utilize its features to enhance the quality of life and break the islands of the isolation that most elderly live in.

Expected benefits for the citizen The Elderly people will get a new tool to fight the isolation and lack of interest that face by communicating easily with people that share similar interests. Furthermore they will be ready for the Information Society that may threat them with more isolation due to their inherit reluctance to the new. Also, they can enjoy more qualitative Homecare services, easy access to telemedicine and therefore more secure life.

Expected benefits for the users of the application There are many types of users that will benefit from the application. The elderly will enjoy that benefits described above while the health visitors, doctors and homecare personnel will get tools to increase the quality of their work and minimize their non productive efforts.

Expected benefits for the European Industries The industries will not only benefit from tangible products like equipment but from software products and more important immaterial products that are the services of the information society.

Contribution to EU-policies The project falls in line with TIDE policies touching most of the defined tasks while paving at the same time the road to the Information Society and the G7 goals.

The RISE Service Classification:

The entire system, in its final stage, will consist of a network of co-operating central sites that will share medical information and provide the whole set of RISE Tele-services to the elderly people. Therefore we can classify the RISE services in the following table.

The RISE Consortium:

Other Contractors: