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As people get older, they tend to become more and more vulnerable to physical disabilities and mental illnesses. In order to prevent the deterioration of their quality of life we have created a system that helps elderly to sustain and extend their activities of daily living (ADL). Older people, especially those who may have just left the working environment, can suffer a sense of loss, particularly of value, purpose, confidence. This can lead to mood swings, isolation and possibly depression. The EDLAH2 (Enhance Daily Live And Health) project tries to combat these negative experiences of elderly people and give the opportunity for a fuller lifestyle. These older adults have a determination to live in their homes and enjoy living in their homes for as long as they can. The idea of the system presented in this paper is to bring an increased level of motivation, interest and engagement into areas that may be important but mundane. This results in a greater drive to be involved in this area of action and a positive feeling when rewards are achieved. EDLAH2 enables the continuity of motivation for elderly people. We set goals and achievements in line with realistic expectations for the older adults and importantly, we provide a guide to their well being improvement. Finally we utilize gamification in order to reinforce the elderly people to stay active and improve their well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Smart sensing technologies play a key role in the core of smart systems, which form the rapidly evolving internet of things. In this context, buildings’ occupancy information is an important input that allows smart systems to be seamlessly aware of and responsive to the inhabitants, thus ensuring their comfort. In this paper we present UltraSense , an ultrasound-based room occupancy sensing system that relies on unsupervised learning, to automatically calibrate its parameters according to the room's environment. This ability avoids the need for manual calibration of the sensing system for each new environment. While commonly available occupancy detection technologies are limited to line-of-sight (LOS) conditions, UltraSense also operates in non line-of-sight (NLOS) scenarios. The proposed system was implemented and tested in order to characterize its performance. UltraSense was developed for the European research project SmartHeat in the frame of ambient assisted living. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Falls among older people remain a very important public healthcare issue. In the majority of fall events external support is imperative in order to avoid major consequences. Therefore, the ability to automatically detect these fall events could help reducing the response time and significantly improve the prognosis of fall victims. This paper presents a practical real time fall detection system running on a smartwatch (F2D). A decision module takes into account the rebound after the fall and the residual movement of the user, matching a detected fall pattern to an actual fall. The last module of F2D is the location module which makes our system very useful for nursing homes that host elderly people. The fall detection algorithm has been tested by Fondation Suisse pour les Téléthèses (FST), the project partner who is responsible for the commercialization of our system. By testing with real data and achieving an accuracy of 96.01% we have a fall detection system ready to be deployed on the market and by adding the location module we can provide it to nursing homes for elderly people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term Serious Games has been used to describe computer and video games used as educational technology or as a vehicle for presenting or promoting a point of view. Serious games can be of any genre and many of them can be considered a kind of edutainment. Serious games are intended to provide an engaging, self-reinforcing context in which to motivate and educate the players towards knowledgeable processes, including business operations, training, marketing and advertisement. Serious games can be compelling, educative, provocative, disruptive and inspirational. The potential of games for entertainment and learning has been demonstrated thoroughly from both research and market. Unfortunately, the investments committed to entertainment dwarf what is committed for more serious purposes. In this feature, we will argue that the motives, incentives and expectations of the computer game industry differ from one cultural and economic environment to another. As the game industry is dominated by US companies, computer game products are targeting user groups mostly informed by the marketing departments of those companies. This process creates marginalised user groups and game types that are not addressed effectively by the computer game market. Accessible games and games for health comprise this underdeveloped niche. Research project PlayMancer is a multi-partner effort to tackle both of those issues in a coherent way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: PlayMancer is a video game designed to increase emotional regulation and reduce general impulsive behaviors, by training to decrease arousal and improve decision-making and planning. We have previously demonstrated the usefulness of PlayMancer in reducing impulsivity and improving emotional regulation in bulimia nervosa (BN) patients. However, whether these improvements are actually translated into brain changes remains unclear. Objective: The aim of this case study was to report on a 28-year-old Spanish woman with BN, and to examine changes in physiological variables and brain activity after a combined treatment of video game therapy (VGT) and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Methods: Ten VGT sessions were carried out on a weekly basis. Anxiety, physiological, and impulsivity measurements were recorded. The patient was scanned in a 1.5-T magnetic resonance scanner, prior to and after the 10-week VGT/CBT combined treatment, using two paradigms: (1) an emotional face-matching task, and (2) a multi-source interference task (MSIT). Results: Upon completing the treatment, a decrease in average heart rate was observed. The functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) results indicated a post-treatment reduction in reaction time along with high accuracy. The patient engaged areas typically active in healthy controls, although the cluster extension of the active areas decreased after the combined treatment. Conclusions: These results suggest a global improvement in emotional regulation and impulsivity control after the VGT therapy in BN, demonstrated by both physiological and neural changes. These promising results suggest that a combined treatment of CBT and VGT might lead to functional cerebral changes that ultimately translate into better cognitive and emotional performances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]