'Smart Home' Demonstrates Concept of Automated Elderly Help and Care
From: EurekAlert - 11/19/2003

University of Florida researchers have designed and built a 500-square-foot
"smart house" that employs state-of-the-art computer and sensor technology to
automatically provide assistive-living services to elderly residents. The
many devices and sensors in the living area are sensitive to residents' needs
and whereabouts via connections to a centralized computer network.
Cutting-edge innovations and services this smart home offers include
notification of detected water leaks by cell phone; vocal control of lights,
doors, window curtains, stereo, and television; location-tracking
technologies that automatically trigger devices - TV screens, for example -
whenever the resident moves into another room; and microwave ovens programmed
to recognize foods and determine their cooking times. "What this home
demonstrates is the evolution from assistive devices to assistive
environments," declares UF associate professor of computer and information
science and engineering Sumi Helal, who believes such a home might one day be
capable of remote health monitoring. The need for money- and labor-saving
assistive technologies is a pressing one, especially in Florida, where people
75 and up account for 9 percent of the state's population. William Mann,
director of the National Institute for Disability, Rehabilitation and
Research, notes that assistive care needs and costs will skyrocket in the
next 20 or so years as 78 million baby boomers approach old age. Studies show
that elderly people who do not acquire and use assistive devices become
debilitated much faster than those who do - and are more expensive to care
for, Mann asserts. Furthermore, elderly people are more inclined to embrace
technology than stereotypes would suggest. 

View full article at:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-11/uof-uh111903.php

Link:
http://www.rerc.ufl.edu/