SONOPA

Our society is characterized by a steadily growing proportion of elderly people. The majority of these elders have a strong desire to age independently in their own home environment. However, with age physical limitations increase and the social environment changes, which often leads to decreasing activity levels, need for assistance with daily life tasks and social isolation. SOcial Networks for Older adults to Promote an Active Life (SONOPA) will empower elders to stay active, autonomous and socially connected and consequently support and unburden family caregivers. Sonopa will achieve this objective by combining a Social Network with Activity Recognition in a Smart Home environment to stimulate and support activities and daily life tasks. Through the social network component and a telepresence system, new and existing contacts will be included in the activities and therefore in the elder’s daily life. The technologies incorporated in Sonopa include: (i) a social network, (ii) measurement systems to register the activities of the user at home and with their peers, (iii) behavior modeling and user profiling techniques, delivering a pattern of the elder’s activities over time by analyzing and summarizing the large sensory data and registered logs; and (iv) a user interface providing personalized recommendations, reminders and encouraging activities to the elder. Sonopa will particularly target elders living independently, but who may be starting to experience difficulties in their daily routine. This target group was chosen to counter decreasing activity levels and initial social isolation at an early stage. Elders and their caregivers will be actively engaged in all phases of the development process of the Sonopa technology. Prototypes will be tested in the elders’ home environment and in each stage we will carefully examine the needs and wishes of the user.