2012 Volume 7 Issue 3 Pages 1283-1293
Aging in place is a sustainable strategy for aging societies all over the world, although there are still various issues to be resolved. One of those issues, the isolation of the elderly, is expected to be tackled by technology. We identify three concepts for designing systems to assist the elderly in communicating with their families: provide trigger for communication, provide control of communication, and effortless communication. We develop the e-Home system on the three concepts. e-Home is a communication system that includes home monitoring; it offers shared sticky notes and video-telephony for communication media while monitoring medication compliance. We conduct a two-month field study of four households, studying e-Home use and its impact on the subjects' communication habits. The results show enhanced communication in all households.
