The largest age group in the Netherlands is aging and when they are in need of home care, there will not be enough people to take care of them in the current healthcare system. One solution could be found in Ambient Intelligence, for it could aid in maintaining independency and postpone the time that people have to go to a nursing home. Furthermore, it could make the job of the caretakers easier. There are pros and cons to use Ambient Intelligence in this delicate matter that will be discussed in this paper. Furthermore, the implications of employing Ambient Intelligence strategies in home care situations will be considered. The conclusions of a recent study by the Rathenau Institute will be used as the red thread, critically looked at and taken into consideration for the recommendations of how to implement Ambient Intelligence in home care.
The Master's program Human-Technology Interaction offers a unique opportunity to study these issues by applying knowledge from the social sciences, in particular psychology, to problems raised by the introduction of new technologies. The program is based on three fundamentals:
human behaviour, specifically applied to technological settings
user-oriented development of technological products and environments
Summary of study “wearables and healthcare” by the master students (Koen Roorda & Roy de Laat) in Human-Technology Interaction (HTI) at Eindhoven University of Technology.
