Innovative solution to improve elderly care at home

The innovation project "EULE" aims to develop an intelligent home monitoring system designed to support caregivers and family members in caring for senior citizens, seamlessly integrating into the user's everyday life. Bringing together expertise from the two partners MediTECH Electronic GmbH and cibX GmbH within the AIMECA innovation network, the project also involves collaboration with the Institute of Movement Therapy and Movement-oriented Prevention and Rehabilitation at the German Sport University Cologne and the Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics and Cybernetics at the Czech Technical University in Prague. The international cooperation project "EULE" is being funded with a total volume of around 714,000 euros from the Central Innovation Program for SMEs (ZIM).

Challenges and Opportunities for Home Care

Demographic change is presenting Germany with major challenges in the care sector. The number of available nursing home places is limited, while many senior citizens in need of care want to stay in their familiar surroundings for as long as possible. This can lead to increased psychological stress for their caretakers and it is also becoming increasingly difficult for care providers to guarantee adequate care due to staff shortages. New technologies are now being used to ensure better care in the home environment of senior citizens in need of care. An intelligent home monitoring system should not only record and document important health data, but also enable direct interaction with those in need of care. This would relieve the burden on relatives and nursing staff and at the same time promote the independence of senior citizens.

Intelligent Home Monitoring System

EULE is a multi-sensory and multifunctional device that records and analyzes movement, vital and voice-based parameters of elderly people in need of care in their home environment in order to generate personalized warnings and alarms in the event of an acute incident such as a fall. By integrating camera- and microphone-based data capture technologies with AI-driven analyses, EULE aims to help individuals in need of care live autonomously in their own homes while reducing the psychological burden on caretakers. Care professionals should gain access to the documented data in order to recognize long-term health trends and initiate measures at an early stage.

International Cooperation

The Section Movement-Oriented Prevention and Rehabilitation at the Institute of Movement Therapy and Movement-oriented Prevention and Rehabilitation at the German Sport University Cologne will develop advanced algorithms that record movement parameters based on camera data. Not only falls, but also the risk of falling will be detected. The German Sport University Cologne is also responsible for validating the developed system. MediTECH Electronic GmbH is developing sensor-based measurement methods for vital parameters such as blood pressure, which enable distance-based recordings of data and thus allow a seamless integration into everyday life. A voicebot developed by cibX GmbH will not only enable communication with those in need of care, but will also analyze voice parameters to check for changes in the speech of those in need of care, such as in the case of a stroke. In addition, scientists at the Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics and Cybernetics at the Czech Technical University in Prague will support the implementation of AI to analyze and interpret the multimodal health data. By linking and analyzing various health parameters, a comprehensive health picture of the senior citizens is created. Unusual events are recognized and individual warnings can be sent to the senior citizens, to their relatives as well as to the nursing staff in order to improve care at home in the long term.

The idea for the "EULE" project was developed as part of the innovation network AIMECA - Artificial Intelligence in Medical Care, which is funded by the Central Innovation Program for SMEs (ZIM). As part of their membership, the partners are actively supported in the realization of R&D projects and in securing funding. AIMECA is managed by IWS GmbH, which also handles the application management of the cooperation projects and provides intensive support to members when it comes to developing new technologies.

For more information, visit www.aimeca.net

Project Partners "EULE":

MediTECH Electronic GmbH | Wedemark, Germany
cibX GmbH | Greven, Germany
German Sport University Cologne | Cologne, Germany
Czech Technical University | Prague, Czech Republic

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This release was published on openPR.