Smart houses = smart elder care?

Smart house technology has the potential to help elderly to live longer at home - with better life quality, thinks american research scientist George Demiris from the University of Washington in Seattle. Photo: Jan Fredrik Frantzen, NST.

Can we use smart homes with sensor technology to counter the shortage of health staff - and improve geriatric care?

Yes, said the US researcher George Demiris during his presentation at the Tromsø Telemedicine and eHealth Conference. But he emphasized that this type of technology also has its share of pitfalls.

Improves safety…

Demiris described how smart houses are now being tested at three locations in the USA. One of these projects is Tiger Place in Columbia, Missouri. There, the technology has been installed in 33 apartments.

A total of 34 residents aged from 70 to 90 live in these units, which contain equipment such as doormats and cookers with sensors, in addition to cameras that monitor motion in the rooms in the building.

"We wanted to create an environment in which people could live at home longer than before, even if they have chronic conditions, as about 90% of the residents in these apartments do," he explained.

And the feedback from the residents is largely positive. What many of them particularly appreciate is that if they fall, sensors will detect this, so that the health staff are alerted straight away and can come to help users with problems.

…but results in other challenges

But such extensive use of technology has its drawbacks, even though it is for a worthwhile purpose, says Demiris. Will users feel that they are under surveillance when they know that health staff can monitor where they are in the building?

"We decided from the beginning of this project that no residents would be required to wear sensors. They would also be told where all the sensors were and what information was sent to the nurses from the equipment," he explained.

Demiris also raised important but unresolved questions about whether we will end up becoming too dependent on the new technology. And if we replace some of our human contact with technology ¬– will that become a problem?

In any case, the technology must be developed to meet the real needs of users – not driven by what it is technically possible to accomplish, he concluded.

For more information, please contact the Head of Information, Hilde Pettersen, mobile telephone +47 991 03 794.

Facts about TTeC 2007:

The Tromsø Telemedicine and eHealth Conference takes place from 11 to 13 June 2007. This is the seventh time that the Norwegian Centre for Telemedicine in Tromsø is organizing the conference, which gathers several hundred participants from 20 countries over three days. This year's conference focuses on new, non-traditional possibilities for improving the efficiency of the care service and reducing the burden on the public health service when the grey wave begins in earnest within a few years.