Five years of interdisciplinary research on ageing and technology: Outcomes of the Lower Saxony Research Network Design of Environments for Ageing (GAL) – An introduction to this Special Issue on Ageing and Technology

Abstract

This Special Issue of Informatics for Health and Social Care is presenting outcomes of the Lower Saxony Research Network Design of Environments for Ageing (abbreviated as GAL), probably one of the largest inter- and multidisciplinary research projects on aging and technology. In order to investigate and provide answers on whether new information and communication technologies can contribute to keeping, or even improving quality of life, health and self-sufficiency in ageing societies through new ways of living and new forms of care, GAL had been established as a five-year research project, running from 2008 to 2013. Ambient-assisted living technologies in personal and home environments were especially important. During the five years of research in GAL, more than seventy researchers from computer science, economics, engineering, geriatrics, gerontology, informatics, medicine, nursing science and rehabilitation pedagogy intensively collaborated in finding answers.

• Ageing societies
• ambient-assisted living
• assisted living facilities
• demographic change
• health-enabling technologies
• pervasive health care
• research
• smart homes

INTRODUCTION

This Special Issue of Informatics for Health and Social Care presents outcomes of the Lower Saxony Research Network Design of Environments for Ageing, probably one of the largest inter- and multidisciplinary research projects on aging and technology (1).

OBJECTIVE AND BACKGROUND OF GAL¹

Many societies across the world are confronted with demographic changes, usually related to increased life expectancy and, often, relatively low birth rates. Information and communication technologies may contribute to adequately support senior citizens in aging societies with respect to quality of life and quality and efficiency of health care processes.

In order to investigate and provide answers on whether new information and communication technologies can contribute to keeping, or even improving quality of life, health and self-sufficiency in ageing societies through new ways of living and new forms of care, the Lower Saxony Research Network Design of Environments for Ageing [in German: Niedersächsischer Forschungsverbund Gestaltung altersgerechter Lebenswelten, abbreviated as GAL] was established as a five-year research project, running from 2008 to 2013. Ambient-assisted living technologies in personal and home environments were especially important. During the five years of research in GAL, more than seventy researchers from computer science, economics, engineering, geriatrics, gerontology, informatics, medicine, nursing science and rehabilitation pedagogy intensively collaborated in finding answers.

STRUCTURE AND CONTENTS OF THIS SPECIAL ISSUE

This Special Issue presents research outcomes of GAL, or of research, which had been closely related to GAL. There are three themes.

Part 1: Overview

In (2) the members of the Lower Saxony research network GAL present a comprehensive summary of the GAL research network. They introduce GAL as research project, compare GAL’s research approach to those of related projects, and report on major outcomes of GAL, as well as on major challenges and lessons learned in running and organizing such a large, inter- and multidisciplinary project.

Part 2: Outcomes

This introductory paper is followed by reports on specific research outcomes. In (3) Rainer Huber and co-authors present concepts and evaluations for normal-hearing and hearing-impaired persons in the context of audio reproduction for personal ambient home assistance. Andreas Hein and co-authors share in (4) their results and experiences from field studies on working with a domestic assessment system to estimate the need of support and care of elderly and disabled persons. Gait analysis, in particular for identifying activity patterns and for fall-risk identification, was a major topic in GAL. The papers of Thomas Frenken and co-authors on performing gait analysis within the timed up and go assessment test (5) and of Matthias Gietzelt and co-authors on a prospective field study for sensor-based identification of fall risk in older people with dementia (6) focus on this topic. Last, but not least, Michael Marschollek and co-authors present and discuss in (7) the GAL-NATARS study design along with first results regarding technical feasibility of long-term home monitoring and acceptance of different sensor modalities. The GAL-NATARS study aims to explore multimodal activity monitoring for home rehabilitation of older people with fractures.

Part 3: On technology, methodology and business modelling

Part 3 contains three papers with different, important “basic” aspects of GAL research. In (8) Marco Eichelberg and co-authors report on GAL‘s technical platform for environments for ageing and on their lessons learned from three field studies. Although not directly part of GAL, but strongly related to research in GAL, this Special Issue also includes a manuscript by Martin Kohlmann and co-authors, in which they present a methodological framework for the analysis of highly intensive, multimodal and incoherent data in the context of health-enabling technologies and ambient-assisted living (9). The paper of Uwe Fachinger and Birte Schöpke deals with business models for such technologies by presenting and discussing a business model for sensor-based fall recognition systems (10).

OVERVIEW

Table 1 presents an overview on the manuscripts of this Special Issue on Aging and Technology.

Table 1. Summary on the contents of this Special Issue, with links to the references.

Part 1: Overview

[2] The members of the Lower Saxony research network GAL: Information and communication technologies for promoting and sustaining quality of life, health and self-sufficiency in ageing societies – outcomes of the Lower Saxony research network design of environments for ageing (GAL).

Part 2: Outcomes

[3] Rainer Huber et al.: Audio reproduction for personal ambient home assistance: Concepts and evaluations for normal-hearing and hearing-impaired persons.

[4] Andreas Hein et al.: Working with a domestic assessment system to estimate the need of support and care of elderly and disabled persons: Results from field studies.

[5] Thomas Frenken et al.: Performing gait analysis within the timed up & go assessment test: Comparison of aTUG to a marker-based tracking system.

[6] Matthias Gietzelt et al.: A prospective field study for sensor-based identification of fall risk in older people with dementia.

[7] Michael Marschollek et al.: Multimodal activity monitoring for home rehabilitation of geriatric fracture patients – feasibility and acceptance of sensor systems in the GAL-NATARS- Study.

Part 3: On technology, methodology and business modelling

[8] Marco Eichelberg et al.: A technical platform for environments for ageing – lessons learned from three field studies.

[9] Martin Kohlmann et al.: A methodological framework for the analysis of highly intensive, multimodal and incoherent data in the context of health-enabling technologies and ambient-assisted living.

[10] Uwe Fachinger et al.: Business model for sensor-based fall recognition systems.

FURTHER INFORMATION AND REFERENCES ON GAL

This Special Issue is the third one in a series of special issues on GAL. The other two special issues have been published in 2010 and 2012 (11,12). Publications on other results are best-accessed through the research network's web site (1).

ON ORGANIZING THIS SPECIAL ISSUE

Organizing the review processes for this Special Issue has once again been more challenging than initially expected. The guest editors of this Special Issue, as scientific speakers [R.H., A.H., G.K. and H.K.] and project coordinator [M.E.] constituting the project board for the GAL research network, would like to thank

• the Editor-in-Chief of Informatics for Health and Social Care for giving us the opportunity to publish these manuscripts in this journal. Again, Nicholas Hardiker gave us all necessary advice and support to achieve both high-quality peer review and timely publication;

• the reviewers of the manuscripts for this special issue for their excellent, careful and timely reviews, despite their many obligations and full calendars;

• the authors of the papers for their intensive work on their manuscripts.

Also, as for previous special issues on GAL before, for a couple of submissions for this issue the first [and also managing] guest editor was not sufficiently independent for managing the review processes of some of the manuscripts. This was the case when he was co-author in a paper or when one or several co-authors of a paper were from the same institution as this guest editor. And in (2) he was even corresponding author himself. In order to avoid any risk of bias, caused by conflicts of interests, and in accordance with the Editor-in-Chief of Informatics for Health and Social Care, Professor Arie Hasman, University of Amsterdam, a long term journal editor himself, was once again asked to manage the review process of these papers. Selecting reviewers – and so in these papers also unknown to the guest editors – and deciding on a manuscript’s status of these papers was completely under his responsibility. Therefore we in particular want to gratefully acknowledge his outstanding contribution to this Special Issue.

DECLARATION OF INTEREST

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

This research has been funded by the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture through the “Niedersächsisches Vorab” grant programme under grant ZN 2701.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Also on behalf of the other members of the GAL research network we want to acknowledge the support of the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture for funding the GAL research network and thus giving us the opportunity for doing extensive inter- and multidisciplinary research in this field.

In addition many of the participating institutions also provided additional support for GAL, which also helped us to run this research network.

Last, but not the least, we want to acknowledge the contributions of the members of GAL’s scientific review committee, who also significantly shaped the GAL research network. The members of the scientific review committee were Andreas Kruse [Heidelberg, chair], Heinz Handels [Lübeck], Rolf Heinze [Bochum], Jochen Seitz [Ilmenau], Wolfgang von Renteln-Kruse [Hamburg], Cornel Sieber [Nürnberg] and Werner Vogel [Hofgeismar].

Notes

¹ The text of this section is taken from [2], where also further details can be found.