The ageing of the population raises many challenges to ensure quality of life for older people and their carers. As a response to those challenges, the development of Active Assisted Living (AAL) technologies have gained pace in Europe and beyond. Yet, for those technologies to be effective and successful, the needs of older persons must be taken into consideration.
The VDE|DKE-conference held in Frankfurt am Main (Germany) on 12th June, was the occasion for Javier Ganzarain, AGE Project Officer, to present the needs and expectations of older people with regards to AAL technologies. The conference was part of the week-long IEC System Committee AAL-Meeting, which aimed to foster standardization to ensure the usability and accessibility of AAL systems and services and their cross vendor interoperability. The audience included AAL-experts from Europe, Japan, China, Korea, Canada, USA and other countries who joined the conference to discuss the current development of AAL technologies in Europe and identify how AAL technologies are put into practice.
In his presentation, Mr Ganzarain addressed issues that matter older people, such as “Do I need it, can I use it, can I trust it, can I afford it, how will it change my life?“ and highlighted some concerns expressed by older people in relation to the emerging technologies. The presentation ended with a positive invitation to consider older people as influencers and co-creators of such technologies.
It was followed by the presentation of the AAL financing program that supports the development of such innovative solutions and its future eco-system approach and partnership in the “Ageing Well in a Digital World” framework. Concrete examples of AAL implementations in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Japan were also presented.
After a fruitful discussion, the participants were impressed by the various AAL-activities developped in European countries and by the work of AGE.
