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inevitably results in more disabilities and chronic diseases,
which may necessitate a shift from hospital-based to homebased
care systems and from acute treatments to prevention
and health promotion, for more sustainable care delivery.
Thanks to new digital technologies, remote monitoring can
also guarantee equal access to healthcare and quality of care
for people living in rural/remote areas. The creation of SLEs
should be regulated by policies that allow the accessibility
by the whole population, both in urban and rural areas,
with different cultures or socioeconomic status, considering
that the needs vary with the population peculiarities and the
influence of factors like health, culture, income, and education
level across all ages. Therefore, a user-centred approach
should be adopted when developing new solutions for AFH.
No citizens should feel alone because of ageing, and AFH
could improve health and well-being, support flexible working,
create new jobs, and support the shift to homecare. The
digitalization of vital signs and monitoring data useful to depict
a person's global health status would be particularly
useful for ageing people living at home. This would contribute
to reducing the burden on the healthcare system itself as
well as care delivery costs, which are the main items of the
public spending. Public incentives are surely fundamental to
push towards a significant change in this field, including incentives
for the energy renovation of existing buildings (not
only single dwellings, but also apartment blocks and also entire
neighborhoods, for a more complete plan of renovation
and innovation) would be very important to further accelerate
the process of significant innovation targets to be reached
within 20 years. In addition, environmental sustainability
should be deemed, given that according to the European
Construction Technology Platform (ECPT) 97% of buildings
are energy inefficient and they are responsible for 40%
of energy consumption (corresponding to 36% greenhouse
gas emissions). At present, according to the WHO, 20% of
European people live in buildings that are not sufficiently
protected against excessive heat during summer, and 13% report
insufficiently warm housing during winter.
On the other hand, the increase in life expectancy brings
the need for policies that promote longer working lives, as
well as more flexible working arrangements and new employment
models. This also involves houses equipped with
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) solutions
that respect the regulatory, technical, and functional
constraints for the installation of devices within living environments
and implement dwelling modelling (Building
Information Modelling, BIM). This provides a better delivery
of quality home care services for ageing people, helping them
to feel secure, socially connected, and always supported in
terms of health and care services, in a SLE that implements an
adequate level of sensors, spaces organization, equipment,
and environmental quality, hence improving the inhabitants'
well-being. The best available technologies (BATs, including
comfort control and management, energy efficiency, digital
tools-e.g., Wi-Fi, PC, tablet, interoperability of the technological
system installed in the housing, wearable sensors
September 2021
to constantly and remotely monitor health status and performed
activities, communication devices to keep in contact
with family, friends, and healthcare providers) would spread
in a higher percentage of the buildings designed for older
people, since currently 40-65% of them live in dwellings not
fitting their conditions [29].
It is necessary to raise the awareness and the sensitivity of
stakeholders and of the community in general, focusing on
the possible impact of these solutions in the economic and societal
wellness of any country and on the potential benefits
linked to certain investments. To this aim, the release of a commonly
shared and accepted certification scheme would pave
the way to an increase in the construction sector attentive to
the needs of ageing people. This would help to highlight the
importance and the potential benefits of AFH, leading to the
acquisition of skills and resources to face the big challenge of
supporting health and well-being in ageing in place, also with
suitable policies and incentives to meet the real AFH need.
Each involved stakeholder should own an appropriate level of
operational readiness, including integration of new technologies
and processes in the production process, financial tools to
access to finance for retrofitting or building new AFH, suitable
planning procedures, health and social care policies, increase
of ICT expertise in terms of home comfort and services, and
higher demand of community services. The transferred knowhow
should represent a real support for engineers, architects,
owners, and builders.
Acknowledgment
This research activity was carried out within the following
projects: Homes4Life, funded by the European Union's Horizon
2020 research and innovation programme under grant
agreement no. 826295; Italian Smart-Cities Project Health@
Home, funded by the Italian Ministry of Education, University
and Research, under grant no. SCN_00558; Guardian
(Guardian - The social robot to support independent living),
Resilien-T (Technology driven self-management for building
resilience among people with early stage cognitive impairment),
and eWare (Early Warning (by lifestyle monitoring)
Accompanies Robotics Excellence), part of the Active &
Assisted Living Programme (AAL Programme) that was approved
by the European Parliament and the Council of the
European Union, co-financed by the consortium national
funding agencies.
References
[1] M. Khanafer and S. Shirmohammadi, " Applied AI in
instrumentation and measurement: the deep learning
revolution, " IEEE Instrum. Meas. Mag., vol. 23, no. 6, pp. 10-17,
2020.
[2] P. Carnemolla, " Ageing in place and the internet of things - how
smart home technologies, the built environment and caregiving
intersect, " Vis. Eng., vol. 6, no. 1, p. 7, 2018.
[3] S. Gaspard, " Healthcare innovations for low and medium income
countries or environments today and visions for the future, " IEEE
Instrum. Meas. Mag., vol. 21, no. 5, pp. 11-18, 2018.
IEEE Instrumentation & Measurement Magazine
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