Computer-aided home care, monitoring and therapeutic education

Since 1995, e-health has been concerned with monitoring the elderly at home, using new information and communication technologies (NICTs): intelligent cameras, position sensors, fall detectors, actimetric radars... The data recorded in this way is used to define a quantitative framework which, in the light of significant deviations from normal average behaviour, can be used to identify the onset of a pathology (e.g. degenerative, such as Alzheimer's disease) or the occurrence of an acute episode (respiratory illness, fall, etc.) requiring home intervention. The benefits of such alarms are twofold:

• enable people to remain at home for as long as possible, for effective longevity in a familiar living environment;

• argue for a return home, if no abnormal deviation can be detected during behavior in a specialized institution (hospital, aftercare home, EHPAD (establishment for dependent elderly people), medicalized or non-medicalized retirement home, etc.).