AAL+: Continuous Institutional and Home Care Through Wireless Biosignal Monitoring Systems

This chapter describes the research and development of AAL+, a new tool for continuous short-to-medium and long range patient monitoring. The system has two versions, each targeted at a different environment and at subjects with different needs: (a) AAL+ Institutional, for patients that live in healthcare institutions such as assisted living facilities, with delicate needs in terms of medical assistance and monitoring; and (b) AAL+ Home, for individuals that live in their homes, maintaining some independence and physical capabilities. In the next sections we describe the particular characteristics of each version as well as the development, test and deployment scenarios, in close collaboration with partners from the clinical field and end-users. Currently, the system is in a late prototype stage and was tested in a real environment at two healthcare institutions: an assisted living residence and a public hospital Users’ reactions show that this system brings advantages which extend to institutions, caregivers and end-users, and translate into faster assistance, higher efficiency of the services and new intervention models.