After thinking about the definition of smart homes and smart buildings, see
this blog entry, I started to think about other terms that are likely to be used in this field. So, how about assisted living?
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The Assisted Living Federation of America defines assisted living as a long-term care option that combines housing, support services and health care, as needed. Assisted living is designed for individuals who require assistance with everyday activities such as meals, medication management or assistance, bathing, dressing and transportation". (Definition from
http://www.alfa.org/alfa/Assisted_Living_Information.asp ) It appears that this is a sort of generally accepted definition so this will do for now.
The Merriam Webster website defines assisted living as "
a system of housing and limited care that is designed for senior citizens who need some assistance with day-to-day activities but are not sufficiently incapacitated to require care in a nursing home and that usually includes private quarters, meals, personal assistance, housekeeping aid, monitoring of medications, and nurses' visits". Obviously this is not the right definition for me as I am not working with the elderly so I need to steer clear of definitions that go off in that particular direction; this said however, I will be looking at systems that are used for elderly to gain inspiration for what could be useful for younger people.
Another thing that I have found is that assisted living can mean a single dwelling or indeed a collection of dwellings in one location that can be supervised by both medical and non-medical staff to ensure that the individuals who live there can be cared for in their own homes rather than in care homes. Again I am not looking at a system that can be used in multiple dwellings, but it may be that the final system could easily be converted for this purpose.