CG
CPMTI and CITEC participate in the European project WeTakeCare, a European initiative to improve the quality of life of the elderly and their carers
CPMTI (Multimedia Production Center for Interactive Television) hosted at CITEC, University of Córdoba, the second meeting of Wetakecare European project. This initiative is co-funded by Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) program of the European Commission and by the Spanish Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism.
The consortium meeting aimed to establish system bases, requirements and needs. Work conducted in previous months have led project partners to prioritize which needs and people profiles will become the focus of Wetakecare development.
As explained by CITEC researcher, José Miguel Ramírez and IBV researcher, Rakel Poveda Bridge, at this early stage of the project, 'conceptual development and pre-production system are being defined”. In this sense, the collaboration of VASOS partner to get to know and include the opinion of future end-users has been crucial'. According to Poveda, 'we must ensure that the work reflects the reality of the elderly, which is essential to meet project objectives and achieve a great social and technological impact', he explains.
As explained by CITEC researcher, José Miguel Ramírez, and IBV researcher, Rakel Poveda Bridge, at this early stage of the project, 'conceptual development and pre-production system are being defined”. In this sense, the collaboration of VASOS partner has been crutial to gather and integrate the opinion of future end-users'. According to Poveda, 'we must ensure that the work reflects the reality of the elderly, which is essential to meet project objectives and achieve a great social and technological impact', he explains.
WeTakeCare initiative, led by the IBV, aims to educate and train non-professional caregivers and older people in order to promote their independent living (www.wetakecare.ibv.org).
This system will train elderly people for autonomous development of Daily Life Activities and will provide caregivers with support in service delivery and service quality. At the same time, it will help to safeguard physical and physiological well-being and health of caretakers at work.
WeTakeCare will develop a multimodal interactive system for Daily Life Activities training through applications that can be used in devices such as Microsoft Kinect, televisions, phones or tablets.
The project runs for three years, with participation of IBV as coordinator and also CPMTI (Spain), Kaasa (Germany), ZHAW (Switzerland) and VASOS Association of the Elderly (Switzerland), as well as collaborations from Bayard, Mislata City Council (Office for the Elderly)and Seniorer I TIDEN.
Improve personal autonomy
Several studies indicate that between 7 % and 14 % of elderly people have a slight physical limitation that makes it difficult for them to carry out everyday activities with a concomitant reduction in quality of life. However, approximately 70% of these elderly people receive only informal care.
As explained by Poveda,'these non-professional caregivers assist elderly people and take charge of their Daily Life Activities (DLA), resulting in their physical and emotional distress. It has also been shown that elderly people lose their personal autonomy faster if caregivers are constantly taking care of such activities. WeTakeCare will offer caregivers and elderly people training to reduce these risks and improve their quality of life.