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We investigated the perception of community sport rehabilitation centers by examining the experiences of living lab participants and discussing the centers' roles. From 50 living lab participants in the exercise rehabilitation center, in-depth interviews were conducted with the 10 among them (three males and seven females) who had high participation rates and consented voluntarily. The data collected through participant observation and a review of the literature were analyzed through inductive categorization. The findings show the points as follows: (a) owing to inadequate cognitive and physical accessibility, the older population faced challenges in utilizing the center, causing deficiency in the requisite information and knowledge essential for effective rehabilitation; (b) human and material services, including older adult rehabilitation instructors, systematic management, and service platforms were provided to the participants through the centers; (c) after 12-week program operation, participants experienced improved physical health, and by engaging in the rehabilitation exercise services, developed positive perception of the center. Participants desired to continue with the program and were willing to recommend it to others. These findings emphasize the importance of specialized instructors to older-adults' physical activities, implementing systematic data management and utilization practices, and the collaboration between healthcare institutions and local communities. This is particularly important because of the rapid rise in the older adult population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A living lab is a valuable method for designing tangible and intangible service elements, ensuring a comprehensive user experience. Developing a digital companion service, which users may be unfamiliar with, requires observing user behavior in real-world environments and analyzing living and behavioral patterns. A living lab starts with understanding user characteristics and behaviors. Living lab methods have an impact on the accuracy and precision of service design. The number of seniors in South Korea is rapidly increasing, leading to a rise in social issues like solitary deaths and suicide. Addressing these problems has led to a growing demand for companion robots. To design effective companion services, understanding seniors' living environments and their cognitive and behavioral traits is essential. This opinion piece, based on a national R&D project, presents the development of a digital companion for seniors. It offers insights, providing a comprehensive overview of living lab-based service interaction design and proposing methodologies about living lab environment construction and experimentation and considerations when designing robot interaction functions and appearance. The living lab environment includes real living spaces, laboratories, virtual reality settings, and senior welfare centers. Using the research findings, we created service scenarios, analyzed senior language characteristics, and developed the concept and facial expressions of the digital companion. To successfully introduce a novel service, it is crucial to analyze users' real-life behavior and adjust the service accordingly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The smart city is recognized as a new city model for inclusive urban planning. Many local governments are making smart city plans to develop new policies that manage urban issues in South Korea. They identify issues through citizen surveys and decide which issues should be managed with priority. Some governments test developed policies based on citizen engagement. Most local governments use the living labs to encourage citizen engagement in smart city plans since these are public spaces where planners engage citizens to develop innovative and inclusive ideas. This study conducted a content analysis of smart city plans of local government. We analyzed the various approaches to the living lab and examined the stage of the planning process it is utilized in. Additionally, we identified the barrier to the living lab by interviewing people who participated in the smart city plan. According to the analysis, a barrier to citizen engagement exists in smart city plans; most citizen engagement is only used when planners develop ideas for setting visions and goals. It implies that citizen engagement occurs at a limited level in smart city plans and may cause planning to be less inclusive. We suggest that citizen engagement should be considered in the whole planning process to improve the inclusiveness of smart city plans and encourage sustainable citizen engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The population aging has elevated social costs for healthcare and caregiving services, resulting in considerable public attention to care services to assist older adults in maintaining independence and quality of life for as long as possible.1 The prompt provision of services responded to crises for one-person households can contribute to improve their overall quality of life; such that technology that offers convenient, and safe environments becomes crucial.2 The current study aimed to provide safety and care services based on life data and IoT technologies for older adults living alone and to evaluate effectiveness of safety and care services using Living Lab. Method This was a non-randomized pretest-posttest control group study that included adults who are 50 years or older and living alone. Participants were comprised of three groups according to whether participants receive services based on IoT sensors and/or telephone monitoring systems installed at home to serve as a Living Lab. A Living Lab is a user-centered, open-innovation system, operating in participants' house, integrating concurrent research and innovation processes.3 In the Living Lab, IoT sensors have been tested based on monitoring devices such as motion detection, temperature, or humidity for senior safety. SKT safety and care services using communication data has been utilized to test the effects of telephone monitoring systems. With IoT sensors and/or telephone monitoring systems, all groups also received safety care services from coordinators by regular visits and telephone calls during the three months. All participants completed pre-test and post-test measures that assessed depression, suicidal thoughts, comfortable living, and quality of life. Results and Discussion A total of 63 older adults participated, with the Group 1 of 22 people providing IoT sensor with coordinators' visits, the Group 2 of 22 people providing services through IoT sensor combined with telephone monitoring systems and coordinators' visits, and Group 3 of 19 through coordinators' visits only. There were no significant differences in demographic characteristics among three groups. The results for depression and suicidal thoughts revealed a statistically significant change regardless of assigned group. The findings also indicated statistically significant increases in the scores of residential satisfaction and comfortable living for the Group 2 specifically. The current study suggests that safety and care services accompanying with coordinators may help perceive the importance of responses to crises and self-care for older adults living alone. Furthermore, enhancing our understanding of the phenomenon of older adults living alone, as well as institutional and environmental changes can help to provide useful methods to increase the quality of life for older adults on the 4th industrial revolution era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]