Tropes

robohub 00190.txt

#Robot helps 94-year-old Italian grandmother live independently at home EU invests in new technology to support silver generation. At 94 Grandma Lea could not live alone anymore but she wanted to stay at home. She still does thanks to the EU-funded Giraffplus(@giraffplus) system which uses a combination of wearable devices sensors throughout the home and a mobile robot to assist older people in their homes and to connect them to family friends and healthcare professionals who need to keep an eye on the person health and activities. The system should be in commercial production by the end of 2015. The EU market for robots and devices assisting elderly people is estimated to reach 13 billion by 2016. eople ask why I dont just live with my daughter but she has grandchildren of her own and many new responsibilities. With this valuable assistant that I call Mr Robin I more relaxed about the years ahead and so are my children and grandchildrenexplains 94-year-old Lea Mina Ralli also known as Grandma onnain Italian Lea. She has been using the Giraffplus system for 5 months and often writes about r Robinon her blog (in Italian). In our ageing society many elderly people are in the same situation and robotics can offer a safe and affordable solution. 3 million of EU funding was invested in Giraffplus to test how robots and other devices could help older people live safer more independent lives. The sensors are designed to detect activities like cooking sleeping or watching television and monitor health blood pressure or sugar levels for example. They also allow the persons caregivers to monitor their wellbeing remotely and to check for falls. A robot moves around the home and allows family friends and carers to virtually visit the person. Silver generation and economyvice-President of the European commission@Neeliekroeseu responsible for the Digital Agenda says: one of us is getting any younger. But we all want to know that we will not lose our dignity respect and independence as we age. The EU is investing in new technology that can support the silver generation adding not just years to our life but also life to our years! uropes over-65s have a disposable income of over 3000 billion and much of this will be ploughed back into the caring economy. According to Stephen Von Rump CEO of Giraff Technologies AB the EU market for robots and other devices assisting our elderly will reach 13 billion by 2016. iraffplus will be in 15 homes by the end of 2014says Amy Loutfi the project coordinator based at Arebro University Sweden. o far we have had six homes in Europe two homes each in Spain Sweden and Italy that have lived with the Giraffplus system. We currently are in the middle of the evaluations but we see that various aspects of the system are appreciated differently by the different users. This goes to show that a one-size fits all approach to technology at home is not necessarily the best and technology should be both adaptable and tailored to user needscurrent plans are to put the system into commercial production next year based on an upfront fee and monthly subscriptions that would make it competitive when set alongside increasingly expensive full-time care. The Giraffplus consortium includes public and private partners from Italy Portugal Slovenia Spain Sweden and UK. Backgroundthe European commission strongly supports independent living through the use of new technologies including robotics as part of the Digital Agenda strategy@Digitalagendaeu. On top of the new research and innovation programme Horizon 2020#H2020 two important initiatives are dedicated to taking new technologies to the market and homes and to embedding them in our systems for health and social care. The Active Assisted living Joint Programme(@AAL JP) is driven an initiative by the EU member states for applied research on ICT products and services for ageing Well over a hundred projects have been funded since 2008 and it should be continued under H2020: 25 million of EU funding is foreseen in 2014 and the same amount again in 2015. The European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy ageing(@EIP AHA) is a multi-stakeholder partnership to implement innovative ICT-driven technologies for active and healthy ageing at European scale and to remove barriers that prevent their deployment. One of its six Action Groups focuses on independent living while others deal with related topics like the prevention and early detection of falls and age-friendly communities and environments. Read more about Standards for caring robots and The ethics of robotics. Funding available under Horizon 2020through Horizon 2020#H2020 many more projects on independent living including robotics will be funded. One of the focus areas of Societal Challenge 1 Health demographic change and wellbeing is ersonalising health and care (PHC. It notably supports citizen empowerment through self management of health and disease health promotion and disease prevention. The PHC calls have a total budget of 549.3 million for 2014 and 537 million for 2015. Two specific challenges are devoted specifically to robotics (PHC 10-2014 and PHC 19-2014) and two other are dedicated to ICT solutions for independent living (PHC 20-2014 PHC 21-2015

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