Supporting ambient assisting living by using executable context-adaptive task models

Abstract

[EN] The amount of elderly people with chronic diseases is constantly increasing, and current health systems are not able to provide a proper supervision. Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) is a new research area that stands for the use of pervasive and mobile technologies in order to increase the quality of life, wellbeing and safety of elderly people. In this work, we present a tool-supported methodology to facilitate the creation of AAL systems through the use of executable models. AAL services are specified by executable context-adaptive task models by using concepts of a high level of abstraction, which facilitate the participation of medical professionals in the AAL specification. The task models are then interpreted and executed at runtime by a software infrastructure that automates the AAL services as specified. Thus, task models are the only implementation of the services, making it easy their further evolution after system deployment. In order to demonstrate the feasibility of our methodology, we have evaluated it in the development of an AAL system for assisting the patients of a nursing home.