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Improving the Quality of Life of Dependent and Disabled People Through Home Automation and Tele-assistance

Authors:
Carlos Rivas Costa
Miguel Gómez Carballa
Luis Eulogio Anido Rifón
Sonia Valladares Rodríguez
Manuel José Fernández Iglesias

Keywords: e-Health; HTPC; TV; teleassistance; home automation.

Abstract:
Lack of mobility in certain groups of dependents forces them to spend a lot of time at home. In many cases, this limitation makes these people to stay most of the time in a specific room in their houses such as the bedroom or living room, where the only means of entertainment and information gathering is the TV set. Most of present-day households have a personal computer, but the digital divide and lack of adaptation produces certain rejection in this population group. This paper discusses a proposal that leverages the familiar TV set to be used as the user interface for a complete tele-assistance system and control centre of home automation devices. For this, the system makes use of a Home Theatre Personal Computer (HTPC) connected to the TV and offers the features like the monitoring and remote monitoring of a wide range of vital signs, intelligent adaptation of services and interfaces according to the level and type of disability, and centralized control of home automation devices installed at home.

Pages: 47 to 52

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2013

Publication date: March 24, 2013

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2308-4006

ISBN: 978-1-61208-256-1

Location: Lisbon, Portugal

Dates: from March 24, 2013 to March 29, 2013