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Informatics
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Ambient Assisted living for Improvement of Health and Quality of...
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Ambient Assisted living for Improvement of Health and Quality of Life

A special issue of Informatics (ISSN 2227-9709).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 April 2017) | Viewed by 48974

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Shuai Zhang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Computing, University of Ulster, York Street, Belfast BT15 1ED, UK
Interests: intelligent data analysis for connected health applications
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Christopher Nugent

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Computing, Ulster University, 2-24 York Street, Belfast BT15 1AP, UK
Interests: ambient assisted living; smart homes; smart environments; activity recognition
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Jens Lundström

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Intelligent Systems, Halmstad University, Box 823, S 301 18 Halmstad, Sweden
Interests: intelligent environments; activity recognition; anomaly detection; representation learning
Prof. Dr. Min Sheng

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Telecommunications Engineering, Xidian University, Xi'an, Shanxi 710071, China
Interests: mobile communication systems; big data processing; interference and resource management in heterogeneous networks; ultra dense networks (UDN); self-organising networks (SON); green communications and satellite networks

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) aims to use Information and Communication Technology to develop new applications, product, services, and systems to address the needs of an ageing population. With the realisation of such solutions, the desired effect is to have a positive impact on quality of life, the management of health conditions, and improvements in overall wellbeing, whilst, at the same time, reducing the costs of health and social care provision. With the increasing prevalence of technology, AAL solutions aim to offer support in the home environment, in the community, and in the work environment. This Special Issue welcomes submissions on the recent advances in the research, design, development, and evaluation of AAL solutions in the support of improving the health and quality of life of an ageing population. Given the multi-disciplinary nature of AAL, this Special Issue invites participation from different research communities, ranging from data analytics, smart environments, sensor networks, wearable computing, pervasive computing, and information security. We invite the submission of original and unpublished work addressing, though not limited to, the following research topics:

  • Mobile health monitoring
  • Activity recognition
  • Motion detection
  • Mobile sensing
  • Data visualisation
  • Open data
  • Knowledge representation and Ontologies
  • Mobile Systems for AAL
  • Decision support systems
  • Homecare monitoring systems
  • Vital Signs and Wireless Body Networks
  • Healthy lifestyle promotion
  • Internet of Things for AAL
  • Security and privacy in AAL
  • Big data management in AAL

Dr. Shuai Zhang
Prof. Chris Nugent
Dr. Jens Lundström
Prof. Min Sheng
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Informatics is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Editorial

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3 pages, 146 KiB  
Editorial
Ambient Assisted Living for Improvement of Health and Quality of Life—A Special Issue of the Journal of Informatics
by Shuai Zhang, Chris Nugent, Jens Lundström and Min Sheng
Informatics 2018, 5(1), 4; https://doi.org/10.3390/informatics5010004 - 9 Jan 2018
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 7988
Abstract
The demographic change with respect to the ageing of the population has been a worldwide trend[...] Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ambient Assisted living for Improvement of Health and Quality of Life)

Research

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13 pages, 4716 KiB  
Article
Thermal-Signature-Based Sleep Analysis Sensor
by Ali Seba, Dan Istrate, Toufik Guettari, Adrien Ugon, Andrea Pinna and Patrick Garda
Informatics 2017, 4(4), 37; https://doi.org/10.3390/informatics4040037 - 28 Oct 2017
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 10824
Abstract
This paper addresses the development of a new technique in the sleep analysis domain. Sleep is defined as a periodic physiological state during which vigilance is suspended and reactivity to external stimulations diminished. We sleep on average between six and nine hours per [...] Read more.
This paper addresses the development of a new technique in the sleep analysis domain. Sleep is defined as a periodic physiological state during which vigilance is suspended and reactivity to external stimulations diminished. We sleep on average between six and nine hours per night and our sleep is composed of four to six cycles of about 90 min each. Each of these cycles is composed of a succession of several stages of sleep that vary in depth. Analysis of sleep is usually done via polysomnography. This examination consists of recording, among other things, electrical cerebral activity by electroencephalography (EEG), ocular movements by electrooculography (EOG), and chin muscle tone by electromyography (EMG). Recordings are made mostly in a hospital, more specifically in a service for monitoring the pathologies related to sleep. The readings are then interpreted manually by an expert to generate a hypnogram, a curve showing the succession of sleep stages during the night in 30s epochs. The proposed method is based on the follow-up of the thermal signature that makes it possible to classify the activity into three classes: “awakening,” “calm sleep,” and “restless sleep”. The contribution of this non-invasive method is part of the screening of sleep disorders, to be validated by a more complete analysis of the sleep. The measure provided by this new system, based on temperature monitoring (patient and ambient), aims to be integrated into the tele-medicine platform developed within the framework of the Smart-EEG project by the SYEL–SYstèmes ELectroniques team. Analysis of the data collected during the first surveys carried out with this method showed a correlation between thermal signature and activity during sleep. The advantage of this method lies in its simplicity and the possibility of carrying out measurements of activity during sleep and without direct contact with the patient at home or hospitals. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ambient Assisted living for Improvement of Health and Quality of Life)
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27 pages, 8915 KiB  
Article
Development and Evaluation of a Mobile Application Suite for Enhancing the Social Inclusion and Well-Being of Seniors
by Christos Goumopoulos, Ilia Papa and Andreas Stavrianos
Informatics 2017, 4(3), 15; https://doi.org/10.3390/informatics4030015 - 22 Jun 2017
Cited by 29 | Viewed by 11868
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 [...] Read more.
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. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ambient Assisted living for Improvement of Health and Quality of Life)
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8 pages, 540 KiB  
Article
Medical and Para-Medical Personnel’ Perspectives on Home Health Care Technology
by Vera Stara, Lorena Rossi and Gianfranco Borrelli
Informatics 2017, 4(2), 14; https://doi.org/10.3390/informatics4020014 - 19 Jun 2017
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 7527
Abstract
User-based research is strongly recommended in design for older adults. The aim of this paper is to focus the attention on the poorly explored role of medical and para-medical personnel’s perspective on home health care technologies using data that have been gained during [...] Read more.
User-based research is strongly recommended in design for older adults. The aim of this paper is to focus the attention on the poorly explored role of medical and para-medical personnel’s perspective on home health care technologies using data that have been gained during the “Active Ageing At Home” (AA@H) project. A focus group was organized at the National Institute of Health & Science on Ageing (INRCA) in Italy. Results demonstrate that several challenges deserve a stronger effort by the whole research sector on ageing and technology: (1) a leading role of the participatory design process; (2) the assessment of the added value of health technologies through robust methods; (3) the definition of an unique identity and well established practices among disciplines; (4) the creation of favorable prerequisites and conditions to the technology uptake. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ambient Assisted living for Improvement of Health and Quality of Life)
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Review

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14 pages, 652 KiB  
Review
Ambient Assisted Living and Health-Related Outcomes—A Systematic Literature Review
by Alexandra Queirós, Ana Dias, Anabela G. Silva and Nelson Pacheco Rocha
Informatics 2017, 4(3), 19; https://doi.org/10.3390/informatics4030019 - 10 Jul 2017
Cited by 24 | Viewed by 9715
Abstract
The active ageing paradigm aims to contribute to the expectation of a long, autonomous, independent and healthy life. Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) promotes the development of technological solutions that might have a key role in not only the optimization of support services for [...] Read more.
The active ageing paradigm aims to contribute to the expectation of a long, autonomous, independent and healthy life. Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) promotes the development of technological solutions that might have a key role in not only the optimization of support services for older adults but also in the mitigation of their disabilities. This article presents a systematic literature review of how the impact of AAL technologies, products and services is being assessed in terms of its health-related outcomes. The main objective of this article is to contribute to the understanding of how state-of-the-art AAL solutions might influence the health conditions of older adults. The method used to conduct this systematic literature review followed the guidelines of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA). The results show that the reviewed articles report not only the use of technological assessment instruments but also instruments to measure health-related outcomes such as quality of life. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ambient Assisted living for Improvement of Health and Quality of Life)
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