Supportive Smart Homes

Significant health-industry human resource needs increase the reliance on family and friends to support older adults hoping to age in place. This book explores how recent improvements in integrated home technologies have the potential to address those challenges. The book considers how embedded home sensors can be used to monitor the health and wellbeing of older adults and how that can be used to assist with supporting safety and well-being. The content is designed to help multiple stakeholders in the supportive smart home space to better understand the complexity of this field and the need for transdisciplinary collaboration. These stakeholders include the older adults who will benefit from supportive smart home technology; informal and formal caregiver and healthcare professionals concerned about the older adult’s well-being; researchers from multiple disciplines in the supportive smart home area and their funders; companies looking to develop solutions and services or expand their offerings; policy makers who want to ensure privacy and equity in access and a successful integration of these technologies into the evolving health and social services sectors; and students, the future leaders in AgeTech. Overall, the intent of the book is to inspire engineers, computer scientists, industrial designers, clinicians and healthcare providers, social scientists, students, policy makers, and older adults and their caregivers to collaborate in advancing the supportive smart home space to develop more options for aging in place.