Toward Healthy and Successful Aging: Intelligent Home Care Environments for the Elderly

Due to increases in chronic diseases, hospital costs, and aging populations, home care has become a growing world- wide trend in elder care. This research proposes Intelligent Home Care Environment (IHCE) as a solution that can assist the elderly with physical and cognitive functioning, while reducing costs and avoiding the social and cultural problems associated with current solutions. In order to examine the interrelationship between the elderly and their physical environments in home care, this research starts with ecological models of human-environment relationships and the disablement model that is used in the epidemiology of aging and gerontology. Then, Acupuncture Theory is employed as a metaphor/model for formulating a Dynamic Multi-Agent System (DMAS) that can dynamically respond to ever-changing events in the environment; this is a way to design the physical environment as a ‘living ecology’. Finally, with the aim of considering how the elderly are assisted in home care from a social and cultural perspective, quantitative and qualitative case studies describe how personal and cultural tastes affect the user’s physical and cognitive functioning.