Design of a lifestyle recommender system for the elderly

Abstract

As overaging is becoming a main societal challenge, the development of AAL (Ambient Assisted Living) systems has become the centre of many research projects the last years. Our own work is targeted towards the development of an AAL system -called CARE- that provides assistance in form of recommendations helping its users overcome typical difficulties of everyday life, and contributes positively to their well-being. To inform the design of the envisioned CARE system we recruited two peer groups of potential users, a group of 20 Greek seniors, and a group of 27 German seniors, and conducted structured interviews which were focused on the seniors' life-style, medical needs, attitude towards AAL technologies, and, more specifically, on desired functions and system configurations of a recommendation-giving CARE system. We discuss outcomes of the conducted interviews and sketch a first CARE prototype which appears as an augmented digital picture frame that interleaves the display of photos with recommendations and interventions to improve the seniors' life-style and well-being.