Building on existing research and experiences regarding the use of supportive and assistive technology -- called welfare technology -- in elderly care, we have developed a framework to represent a holistic view of the complex tangle of factors contributing to the sustainable integration of these technologies into the elder care context. The framework is described here for the purpose of initiating a conversation regarding the framework with interested researchers. At the same time discussions are also being conducted with managers, caregivers, and other stakeholders involved in welfare technology deployment in eldercare in Sweden. Our ultimate goal with the framework is to provide general guidelines that municipalities and care organizations can use to improve the quality of life for elderly citizens through the successful selection, rollout and use of welfare technology that meets the needs not only of the elderly citizens needing support but also of the care providers and organizations. 

By 2050, the population share aged over 80 will double. Considering the number of older adults and the wide range of chronic conditions, health systems need to assure that care is adapted to the individuals' different needs and enables the elderly to be active and involved. This article is about introducing a food reminder system into the domain of dementia care. The aim is to explore and describe whether and how such a system, built with existing technology, can be valuable, and how caregivers adopted it in a real-world environment. The system is built with Android® tablets and is called iRemember.® The research is done as a case study at a care facility in Simrishamn, Sweden. Domain knowledge is gained by reviewing previous research and by conducting interviews with professionals at the facility. The system is developed, deployed, and evaluated at a care facility home for persons with dementia. Data about usage and perception of the value of the system is collected through observations and interviews. Results indicate that a food reminder system can be valuable to and empower people with dementia. They also indicate that caregivers can readily adopt such a solution, including both management and people working directly with persons with dementia.

Överallt samlar sensorer data som analyseras för att räkna ut hur man sparar energi, hur mycket insulin som ska injiceras, var den närmaste hyrbilen finns, hur många människor som fortfarande är kvar inne i en brinnande byggnad... Denna snabba spridning av teknik kallas för Sakernas Internet, eller IoT. Människor har makten, eller har vi verkligen det? Hur mycket värderar vi vår integritet? Vilka internetanslutna gadgets hjälper oss att leva ett hälsosamt och hållbart liv - och vilka prylar kommer bara att öka vår stressnivå? När blir användningen missbruk? Utställningen undersöker hur IoT påverkar människor, samhälle och industri. Forskningsprojekt i utställningen: Emergent Configuration for IoT Systems (ECOS+), Smart energy management and security (SEMS), Fair Data, Walk the ward, Dynamic Intelligent Sensor-Intensive Systems (DISS), PELARS-projektet och Busrunner presenteras i "IOTAP-labbet"

Integrating technological innovations into healthcare systems has proven to be challenging. It is possible, however, to make small but significant improvements to healthcare through technologies that are not connected to the massive electronic health records systems. This paper describes one such system, Walk the Ward, which was developed for a medical ward in a large regional hospital. Walk the Ward is a quiz-type game played by hospitalized patients to provide entertainment, social interaction and, most importantly, exercise, which promotes healing. Educational information is also provided in the game. Evaluations of the game have shown that patients found it enjoyable and useful, and it facilitated social interactions. Hospital staff also found the game beneficial because it both helped patients and did not increase staff workloads. While the game is currently used in only one location, the basic structure can easily be expanded to multiple settings at a relatively low cost.

The connection of intelligent devices and agents via the Internet of Things (IoT) provides a foundation for smart healthcare systems to monitor the status of patients, their activities, and their environments and to provide services that can improve health. These smart health ecosystems connect patients, caregivers, and medical professionals with each other and with data captured by sensors and other devices. Healthcare applications using this data can store and track relevant metrics, provide alerts when metrics are outside expected ranges, and provide feedback and recommendations to assist in the management of a wide variety of health issues including weight management, stroke rehabilitation, and glucose monitoring. This chapter provides an overview of different types of IoT-based patient-focused healthcare applications providing these types of services. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the major challenges related to healthcare technology using the Internet of Things and the future potential of these applications.

A first step towards emotional well-being is to monitor, understand and reflect upon one’s feelings and emotions. A number of personal emotion-tracking applications are available today. In this paper we describe an examination of these applications which indicates that many of the applications do not provide sufficient support for monitoring a full spectrum of emotional data or for analysing or using the data that is provided. To design applications that better support emotional well-being, the full capabilities of the Internet of Things should be utilized. The paper concludes with a description of how Internet of Things technologies can enable the development of systems that can more accurately capture emotional data and support personal learning in the area of emotional health.

With the support of the regional public transport operator, this paper explores the potential for mobile games to make journeys on public transport more enjoyable. To this end we have developed a game called Bus Runner which is a context-aware endless runner, based on open and shared data. By blending features of the physical world, such as recognisable landmarks, with the game’s virtual world, we situate and enhance passengers’ experience of travelling on public transport. We identify a set of challenges and opportunities based on the development and evaluation of Bus Runner. These are of relevance not only for game development purposes, but also impact context-driven content generation of infotainment services as a whole.

Emotions and physical health are strongly related. A first step towards emotional well-being is to monitor, understand and reflect upon one’s feelings and emotions. A number of personal emotion-tracking applications are available today. In this paper we describe an examination of these applications which indicates that many of the applications do not provide sufficient support for monitoring a full spectrum of emotional data or for analyzing or using the data that is provided. To design applications that better support emotional well-being, the full capabilities of the Internet of Things should be utilized. The paper concludes with a description of how Internet of Things technologies can enable the development of systems that can more accurately capture emotional data and support personal learning in the area of emotional health.

Consumers today can track health-related data via many different types of wearable devices and sensors. Health improvement systems which integrate data from personal devices and sensors with intelligent behavior modification applications can support the initiation and maintenance of behavior changes that are necessary to achieve health-related goals. The COMBI (Computerized Behavior Intervention) model and the application based on this model (eMate) demonstrate the integration of theories of behavior change in a framework on which to build an intelligent behavior modification system (Klein et al, 2014). The application, eMate, validated in several health-related settings, provides a functioning example of a consumer-focused health improvement system. Recent research highlights the importance of customizing behavior modification systems to support different user characteristics and changes over time. In this paper we present an extension of the COMBI model as an Internet of Things ecosystem which explicitly incorporates multiple types of personalization, autonomous data collection by tracking devices and sensors, and integration of actors from the user's social networks as well as healthcare professionals. Related to this extended model, the following guidelines for the design and development of consumer-focused health improvement systems are presented: (1) Personalization is essential and users should be viewed as co-designers of their personalized health improvement systems. (2) Personal monitoring devices and sensors can measure performance on relevant metrics autonomously and this data can be compared to established norms, based on user characteristics, to determine appropriate feedback. (3) The health behavior modification application must be dynamic and adapt over time to changes in the user's context and performance. (4) The system should facilitate interaction with healthcare providers and the user's social network.

In this paper we revisit emergent design and review five design oriented methodologies; action research, design research, controlled experiments, participatory design and ethnographic based approaches. Based on this review, we outline implications for the use of these methodologies in conjunction with an emergent design stance. Adopting such a stance is in line with both the exploratory way in which users embrace technology and the strong acceptance that agile software development approaches have had. It is therefore, we argue, appropriate that our research methodologies are adapted to embrace this change.