Smart Living - The Way Forward for Disabled and Older People
Tuesday 15th June 2010, London
Smart living involves buildings that are tailored to the needs of the individual as well as related services such as telecare and local transport information.
This seminar brought together engineers, architects, builders, communication experts, health care specialists, energy providers and organisations representing disabled and older people to develop a holistic approach to future housing needs for people with disablities.
Summary
Opening Speech
Peter Bonfield said that by 2050 half of us will be of pensionable age in the United Kingdom. The homes and communities we build and retrofit today have to meet the needs of our future population. Our industry must begin to address the 'smart living' agenda and embrace the technologies that will keep us all living independently for longer in our own communities.
The Need for Change
Martyn Gilbert:
Whilst improvements are always possible, all of the substantive technology necessary to help older and disabled people live as they wish in their own homes, is here and has been here for several years. The obstacles are entrenched behaviours in the public and private sectors. They are obstacles of convention, ego and unwillingness to cooperate in good will with other stakeholders. The nation can no longer afford the luxury of such behaviours. We are deeply in debt and the ratio of tax-payers to those who need care is at its worst. If we are to define ourselves by ignoring these realities that diminish the quality of life for millions of our fellow citizens, we need do nothing. If we are uncomfortable with that notion, it makes societal, business and national sense to collaborate to bring about with widest installation of these technologies in people's homes.
The Unmet Needs
Patrick Roe
From the user’s perspective, there are still many unmet needs in the area of smart living, ranging from user interfaces, the balance between social interaction and technology, the provision of appropriate services right through to ethical issues. The user interface is an area that can be particularly problematic for many people with disabilities. There is a need for consistent interfaces that can be tailored to meet the specific needs of an individual. Ideally there should be a set of guidelines for designing user interfaces for smart living systems.
There is also an unmet need for a consensus on a consistent set of ethical guidelines which are enforceable. These guidelines should not be bland (ie apple pie) but address difficult issues such as informed consent.
Although there are many excellent pilot schemes for providing various components of smart living systems and services for people with disabilities, there lacks an overall coherent plan for developing fully integrated systems and services which meet the unmet needs of the user population. Without such a plan, the situation in five years time is likely to be as fragmentary as it is today.
There is a need for a consensus on a roadmap for future research in this area. The CARDIAC project (Coordination Action in R&D in Accessible and Assistive ICT www.cardiac-eu.org)., will be generating such roadmaps in consultation with a wide range of relevant stakeholders.
Buildings for the Future
Peter Ball
We know about some of the key challenges with regard to carbon emissions and the changes in demographics, but the future has to be inclusive design. So any specialist technologies or applications have to be configured for the general audience. Because if they're not developed for mass market and mainstream, some of them will be very, very expensive.
We have got to take a different view of home automation. It is all about health and well-being nowadays. The health services funding is unsustainable. We have got to stop people getting ill - people are living longer, we have to provide an infrastructure to allow them to maintain their life in their own home and not become isolated.
Very much in terms of resource management, we are running out of natural resources so it is everybody's responsibility. But it has to be affordable. It has to be mainstream technology.
Technological Trends
Brian Collins
We have to consider existing technology which with very minimum modifications can be used by people who have some special needs, that can use it. One of the things we have taken for granted over the last 200 years is a growing availability of mobility. Navigation aids are being used extensively in standard personal mobility platforms. The next generation of satellite navigation systems will tell you where you are to within ten centimetres. That allows you to navigate around fixed obstacles. If you have a sensory impairment of any sort, using some sort of navigation system that knows exactly where you are and exactly where ever thing else is can be used in an integrated systems way to, deliver mobility services that allow people to move around much more freely.
Our wellbeing could be continuously monitored continuous diagnostics by carrying just a few sensors and the environment will be told what those situations are. That is personalised so it doesn't matter where you are. It could be in your home or vehicle or place of work. All of that wellbeing monitoring is going on at all the time. How much privacy do we give up in order to do that? What will come out of that, of course, is the need for interface design.
Using Telecare and Telehealth to Support Individuals in Their Home
Angela Single
I encourage clinicians, doctors and nurses and front line social care staff to think about using technology in supporting people in the home. These make a huge difference to people's lives. In the telehealth area we know using it to monitor people's vital signs and help them understand their disease, we can save hospital admissions and for every one that we save the health service £3,000. So the return on investment is quick. In stopping falls or alerting them if we can get to people once they have fallen we stop them having hypothermia or deteriorating quickly and refer to other services like stop falls and help mobility. By stopping falls, we know each hospital admission costs £2,500 and 50 per cent of people with a fractured hip will die within the next year, so I believe in using technology to really change the way people live their lives.
Usability in Context
Colette Nicolle
As an ergonomist, my main aim is to ensure that smart living products and services meet the needs of their users. Our earlier research for the European Commission into smart home technologies, dating back to the early 1990’s, illustrates that little has changed since we at Loughborough University first emphasised for the need for integration of different smart home systems. In addition, our experimental studies on the I~Design 3 project, funded by the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, provides evidence of the importance of good size and contrast of text in order to make the interface to individual smart living products as usable and accessible as possible. Our aim should be a common, consistent and seamless user interface, following usability and inclusive design principles to accommodate the wide range of user needs, the tasks people are performing, and the home environment, where e.g. lighting levels at different times of the day may impact on people’s visual abilities when using products. We must ensure, for example, that interfaces are customisable to individual requirements and do not invade the user’s privacy without their consent. In addition, each product interface must consider usability and accessibility aspects such as size/contrast of font and familiar language, free from jargon. In other words, keep things simple! If we do this right, there'll be something in it for everyone - good for the user and other stakeholders, as well as good for business.
Implementation: The Key Factors
Evelyn Pellow
What are the critical issues in ensuring that the dream of smart living becomes a nationwide reality? In the region of 60 per cent kit and equipment is not used or used effectively. The reasons given were either the equipment had not been installed properly in the first place, or the user had not been shown how to use the equipment properly. If it broke down and they had great difficulty in getting someone to come and repair it. The training element of the project is a major key to success. It has to be an integral part of the smart living. If it's an after thought, it will fail and people will be denied the huge benefits of smart living.
We need to raise awareness of what smart living is and what it can deliver for everyone in every community. We need to be out there changing attitudes. That is never an easy task. So we need to be trained. The users and families and friends and carers and professionals. In terms of the installers, the industry and manufacturers and various training establishments and professional bodies have major responsibilities. The manufacturers are very much aware of the huge growth and ongoing growth of this market and are becoming more sensitive to the needs for high quality and appropriate training for installers. We need quality training with ongoing quality control, inspection and monitoring.
A major challenge for manufacturing firms is the need to rapidly develop a business model to meet the needs of two markets, traditional purchase market of the health providers that doesn't encourage innovation or quality improvement and the emerging retail market which operates to a different set of values.
Telecare has the potential to revolutionise the care of the elderly, disabled and dementia sufferers, but can it be acceptable to make changes to a person's life and home against their wishes, even if it increases their safety and is deemed by their family and former carers to be for their benefit? We come to the very complex issues of ethical considerations and guidelines. There are no simple answers and solutions and we must respect people before the technology. Smart living like all the technology is evolving rapidly so we need guidelines and protocols that are applicable to emerging kits and products. Every effort must be made to obtain a person's consent, providers and installers provide the user with care and concise information in a manner that is understandable from that individual.
Manufacturers and providers need to offer a high quality of product and service and information. They need to actively promote the products so people can access the system which is required for them. Of course, the equipment should be reliable, responsive, practical, affordable and designed to make it fit for purpose and benefit the end user.
Panel Discussion
Graham Worsley: We have been trying to put together a strategic programme to look at barriers and challenges there are around those areas and the things that need to be done. We have looked particularly at where is the business model which I think that is still one of the major barriers and challenges. I need a new word for "business model".
Richard Foggie: I think we've reached a tipping point, probably in socio‑economic terms. I don't see a viable alternative, frankly, and I think necessity will drive this forward.
Heinz Wolff: I believe that the government will maintain the health service as well as it can, but will not maintain the comfort, quality of life service for chronic disease for elderly people because they can't afford to, and the community haven't yet taken any steps to take it up.
Bob Twitchin: I agree we're at some kind of tipping point, but I'm very concerned as to how this will pan out in terms of the quality for older and disabled people, unless groups such as we have here today can get together and start making things happen.
The full transcript is in the proceedings for the seminar.
Supporters
This seminar was organised by PhoneAbility and was kindly supported by:
