Project Context and objectives

Intelligent System for Independent living and SElfcare of seniors with cognitive problems or Mild Dementia

The aim of the ISISEMD project is to provide a pilot of innovative intelligent set of scalable services that will support the independent living of elderly people in general and in particular the group of elderly with cognitive problems or mild dementia and at the same time to support the formal and informal caregivers in their daily interaction with the elderly. The services will improve the elderly ability for self-care by support for their basic daily activities in way that prevents health risks in their homes. The services will also strengthen the daily interaction with their social sphere - partners and relatives, friends and care-givers, giving them the feeling of safety and preventing their social isolation. Last but not least, their cognitive training and activation will be strengthened.

To prove wide applicability in Europe, the pilot will be validated and tested in realistic conditions for 12-month period in four Member States. The ISISEMD pilot has strong user centric focus and offers a wide range of individual activities that will allow for the e-Inclusion of the elderly people in every day social life. In the final period of the project, usability, business and cost-benefit analysis of the pilot will be carried out.

To achieve its objectives, ISISEMD project mobilises an expert consortium of 12 partners, built on public-private partnership and presenting the whole chain for deploying the pilot service - the consortium has partners to integrate, install, service the system as well as partners to use and benefit from it.

Services to be offered

The project will deliver, test and validate a pilot service with the following key characteristics:

• Intelligent scalable supporting services targeting elderly people in general or people with pre- and mild dementia within their home environment in the context of ambient assisted living – with the aim to help them to perform independently their every day activities at home and improve their social life
• synthesize perspectives, opinions and views
• formulate proposals (e.g. for an eHealth interoperability Road Map) that represent a balanced view and is supported by clear statements about the level of consensus achieved
• Intelligent additional services for their closest family members aiming to keep them informed at any time for the activities of their loved ones, improving their own quality of life and reducing their anxiety and stress
• Intelligent additional services for the care-givers, keep them informed at any time for the activities of their clients living in the community and thus, in a long run, to reduce time and personnel costs, leading indirectly to reduced cost for the whole society
• Extensively tested and validated pilot service in four EU Member State regions, based on an innovative and integrated prototype, built on various ICT technologies and off-the-shelf equipment, that advances the state-of-the-art and involve the most updated standards
• A business model framework and business plan with a detailed analysis for the whole value chain of the pilot service.

Potential Market

According to Eurostat, in 2005 there were around 81 million elderly people aged 65 and over in the EU-27, compared with 38 million in 1960. Today there is one elderly person for every four people of working age. By the 2050 the ration is expected to one elderly for every two people of working age. The proportion of very old people is expected to almost triple in the EU-27 from 4% in 2004 to over 11% in 2050. Italy and Greece are among the countries with more elderly people in Europe: almost one out five citizens is more 65 years and over 80 are about the 5% of the population.

From this percentage, the number of elderly persons with dementia, living in their homes and cared after by their closest family, will be substantial. It is estimated that over the next two decades in Europe there will be a 40% increase in the number of people suffering from dementia 1, and one the contrary -the age at which dementia symptoms first appear, will decrease. As a consequence, in the UK alone, it is predicted that by 2051 the number of dementia sufferers will increase by more than 150% from the present level to nearly 1.75 million 2. As a result, dementia will affect the lives of around one in three people either as a sufferer, or as a carer or relative 2. In Denmark, currently around 80,000 Danes suffer from a form of dementia, affecting almost 400,000 relatives. The National Dementia Knowledge Centre (Nationalt Videnscenter for Demens) has calculated that over the next ten years the number of people in Denmark suffering from some form of dementia will increase to 100,000 3.

Areas of deployment

To prove wide applicability in Europe, the pilot will be validated and tested in realistic conditions for 12-month period in four Member States regions which have extensive experience from existing telehomecare services for elderly. The pilot set of services will integrate: a) several partial services, b) already tested prototype, and c) completed R&D work. The operation will be evaluated with three target end-user groups - elderly, formal and informal caregivers, addressing thus the diverse requirements of these groups. The pilot service will contain 3 different service bundles (basic services, intermediate and high level) that allow for escalation of the service provided to the end-users based on their needs and providing different pricing schemes. The ISISEMD pilot has strong user centric focus and offers a wide range of individual activities that will allow for the e-Inclusion of the elderly people in every day social life. In the final period of the project, usability, business and cost-benefit analysis of the pilot will be carried out.

Future perspectives

The future exploitation of the ISISEMD results will be based on the concept of forming a legal entity (namely a spin-off company) involving all the consortium partners that will have the loyalties of the project results and the business plan for their commercial uptake. This legal entity will have the objective and will be entitled by the project partners to exploit the results after the completion of the project, while at the same time maintain the 4 pilots in the regions and offer technical expertise to the users of the system. The spin-off company will promote, sell, build, customize, operate and maintain a fully functional ISISEMD system, as this will be prototyped (as integrated solution) in the framework of the project.

Duration of the Project

30 months

Start: March 2009 – September 2011

Funding source

The project is partially funded by the ICT Policy Support Programme of the European Commission, Strategic Objective: 1.4 - ICT for ageing well with cognitive problems, combining assistive and independent living technologies
Contract Number: ICT-PSP-2-238914

Project size

The project has 12 partners, among them – regional service providers, industry, SMEs and universities from five European countries with a total budget of 4.520.000 €.

Links

• Website
• Information Society portal
• ePractice portal

Themes

• eHealth
• eInclusion

Contacts: