BACKGROUND:Aphasia describes the lack of the already gained ability to use language in a common way. "Language" here covers all variations of forming or understanding messages.OBJECTIVES:The APH-Alarm project aims to develop a service concept that provides alternative communication options for people with Aphasia to trigger timely help when needed. It considers that a typical user may not be familiar with modern technologies and offers several simple and intuitive options.METHODS:The approach is based on event detection of gestures (during daytime or in bed), movement pattern recognition in bed, and an easy-to-use pictogram-based smartphone app.RESULTS:Agile evaluation of the smartphone app showed a promising outcome.CONCLUSION:The idea of a versatile and comprehensive solution for aphasic people to easily contact private or public helpers based on their actions or automatic detection is promising and will be further investigated in an upcoming field trial.

Digital assistants and guidance systems may support persons with dementia (PwD) during the independent use of the toilet room. The paper investigates the possible use of different light sources to provide visual stimuli for guidance. Demonstrators were presented to dementia experts to gather their views. While there is no evidence yet, it can be concluded that light stimuli in the toilet environment could be a (maybe only additional) option for guidance to be further investigated. The different methods must be always adapted to the local situation and the individual user characteristics.

People with physical limitations face significant challenges when using existing toilets. User requirements work shows the wide range of user needs and confirms the high demand for innovative toilets, enabling people to leave home more often and participate more in societal life. The Toilet For Me too (T4ME2) project aims to implement and test a new ICT-based toilet system capable of physically supporting users, allowing autonomous and safe use outside the home.

A tanulmány néhány, a szerelmi vágy keltette testi szenvedést és magával a vággyal folytatott fizikai konfliktust illető sapphói és anakreóni nyilatkozat előtörténetét vázolja fel a korai görög eposzban, valamint az elégia- és iambosköltészetben. A tárgyalt költői helyek és értelmezésük igazolja az alaptézist, hogy e motívumok kezelése az egyes költők életművében műfaj- és genderspecifikus, valamint az egyéni költői programra jellemző karakterisztikumot mutat.

A tanulmány számba veszi a Sapphó Kypris-költeménye 5–6. sorára vonatkozó lehetséges rekonstrukciókat, és kritikailag elemzi, valamint értelmezi ezeket a sapphói életmű és a korai görög líra tágabb összefüggésében.

Difficulties with appropriate access to public or semi-public toilets for older or disabled people lead to less participation in social activities within this group. We present a smart AI-based toilet concept that uses 3D depth data to automatically pre-configure the height and tilt of a motorized toilet seat to support standing-up and sitting down without the necessity of user interaction. This has the potential to lead to increased autonomy and quality of life.

Elderly people, as well as people with disabilities, face many mobility problems due to either bone system degradation or various afflictions they suffer. Therefore, any solution that improves the quality of life of these people is more than welcome. This paper aims to present an approach for developing a smart toilet system for ageing people and persons of all ages with impairments/disabilities. Toilet4me is one of the most significant projects that involve smart toilet development especially for senior population and those with different disabilities who need an intelligent toilet outside their homes. Unlike the previous solution developed in iToilet project which led to a prototype for home-use (including the ability to adjust the height and position of the toilet and other auxiliary means by using several different technologies, Toilet4me is now exploring the concept and viability of adapting these technologies to semi-public spaces.

In this article, we present results obtained from field trials with the Hobbit robotic platform, an assistive, social service robot aiming at enabling prolonged independent living of older adults in their own homes. Our main contribution lies within the detailed results on perceived safety, usability, and acceptance from field trials with autonomous robots in real homes of older users. In these field trials, we studied how 16 older adults (75 plus) lived with autonomously interacting service robots over multiple weeks. Robots have been employed for periods of months previously in home environments for older people, and some have been tested with manipulation abilities, but this is the first time a study has tested a robot in private homes that provided the combination of manipulation abilities, autonomous navigation, and nonscheduled interaction for an extended period of time. This article aims to explore how older adults interact with such a robot in their private homes. Our results show that all users interacted with Hobbit daily, rated most functions as well working, and reported that they believe that Hobbit will be part of future elderly care. We show that Hobbit's adaptive behavior approach towards the user increasingly eased the interaction between the users and the robot. Our trials reveal the necessity to move into actual users' homes, as only there, we encounter real-world challenges and demonstrate issues such as misinterpretation of actions during non-scripted human-robot interaction.

Standard toilets in Western countries often do not meet the needs of elderly and disabled people with physical limitations. While the existing concept of barrier-free toilets and the emerging "changing places" concept offer more space and support, the fixed height of the toilet seat still imposes a major problem during all phases of toilet use and can limit the users' autonomy by requiring personal assistance. Thus, in the EU project iToilet an innovative ICT-based modular height adjustable toilet system was designed to support the autonomy, dignity and safety of older people living at home by digital technology enhancements adapting the toilet to their needs and preferences. The main requirements were: double foldable handrails, height and tilt adjustment, emergency detection and call, and ease of use. The ICT component in this approach serves a double purpose of enhancing usability of the base assistive technology while at the same time providing safety for independent use. A field test of a prototype system in real environments of a day care center and a rehabilitation clinic has been successfully finished. The application of the iToilet concept also in semi-public settings is currently studied in the Toilet4me project.

In HCI and Assistive Technology design, autonomy is regularly equated with independence. This is a shortcut and leaves out design opportunities by omitting a more nuanced idea of autonomy. To improve our understanding of how people with severe physical disabilities experience autonomy, particularly in the context of Assistive Technologies, we engaged in in-depth fieldwork with 15 people with Multiple Sclerosis who were used to assistive devices. We constructed a grounded theory from a series of interviews, focus groups and observations, pointing to strategies in which participants sought autonomy either in the short-term (managing their daily energy reserve) or in the long-term (making future plans). The theory shows how factors like enabling technologies, capital (human, social, psychological resources), and compatibility with daily practices facilitated a sense of being in control for our participants. Moreover, we show how over-ambitious or bad design (e.g., paternalism) can lead to opposite results and restrict autonomy.

Zusammenfassung Gewachsene Strukturen bilden die Ausgangslage, Integrierte Gesundheitsversorgung das Ziel. Jede verantwortungsvolle Unternehmerin und jeder verantwortungsvolle Unternehmer hätte den Fokus längst auf die individuellen Versorgungsbedarfe und Bedürfnisse seiner Klientinnen und Klienten gelegt und sämtliche Prozesse bedarfs- und bedürfnisgerecht ausgerichtet. Strukturen haben nur den einen Zweck, die Prozesse bestmöglich zu unterstützen. Für die Gesundheitsversorgung bedeutet dies: Auf allen Ebenen des Gesundheitssystems den Mut aufzubringen, sich ausschließlich an Krankheitsbildern und Versorgungsbedürfnissen zu orientieren, – im Sinne einer gelebten Kultur der Versorgungsqualität.

We present the robot developed within the Hobbit project, a socially assistive service robot aiming at the challenge of enabling prolonged independent living of elderly people in their own homes. We present the second prototype (Hobbit PT2) in terms of hardware and functionality improvements following first user studies. Our main contribution lies within the description of all components developed within the Hobbit project, leading to autonomous operation of 371 days during field trials in Austria, Greece, and Sweden. In these field trials, we studied how 18 elderly users (aged 75 years and older) lived with the autonomously interacting service robot over multiple weeks. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time a multifunctional, low-cost service robot equipped with a manipulator was studied and evaluated for several weeks under real-world conditions. We show that Hobbit’s adaptive approach towards the user increasingly eased the interaction between the users and Hobbit. We provide lessons learned regarding the need for adaptive behavior coordination, support during emergency situations, and clear communication of robotic actions and their consequences for fellow researchers who are developing an autonomous, low-cost service robot designed to interact with their users in domestic contexts. Our trials show the necessity to move out into actual user homes, as only there can we encounter issues such as misinterpretation of actions during unscripted human-robot interaction.

Das EU Forschungsprojekt „HOBBIT“ hat Prototypen von assistiven Robotern zur Unterstützung eines sicheren und selbstständigen Lebens entwickelt und bei älteren Personen in der häuslichen Umgebung getestet. Im Projekt „personAAL“ wurde untersucht, ob verschiedene Verhaltensweisen („Persönlichkeiten“) eines solchen Roboterprototyps bei ansonsten gleicher Funktion (Überbringen einer Nachricht) von Testpersonen als unterschiedliche Persönlichkeiten wahrgenommen werden. Der Roboter wurde mit zwei Verhaltensweisen (introvertiert/extrovertiert) ausgestattet und 13 Testpersonen (großteils älteren Personen bzw. Experten aus der Pflege) vorgeführt.

In the recent decades state of the art technologies appeared in many areas to assist older adults with disabilities. However, one very essential activity of daily life, the toileting remained without any relevant development. The iToilet project of the European Union focuses on the development of an intelligent and motorized toilet system to enable independent toilet use for older adults with disabilities. To begin the development, the user requirements of end-users were assessed by means of focus group interviews and questionnaires. The survey was conducted in Austria and Hungary with the participation of 74 persons in total (41 subjects with movement disorders, 21 caregivers and 12 healthcare managers). From the interviews, the ranking of functions and features based on the number of their mentions was derived. The raw ranking was modulated by the average ratings from the questionnaires that resulted in the final list of priorities. Our results suggest that a safe and intelligent motorized toilet system should have foldable handrails on both sides (especially for wheelchair users), motorized height and tilt adjusting mechanism for the toilet bowl, fixed toilet paper holder on both sides and emergency recognition with call function. Simple operation, storage and retrieval of user specific settings including bowl height, and user identification were also deemed as very important features, while the possibility to control functions with gestures was valued rather low.

Traditional water toilet systems of sitting style as mostly used in the Western countries do not fit all the needs some older persons or people with a disability may have in day to day life. To overcome this, the European Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) project iToilet elaborates a concept for an ICT enhanced toilet system which is able to adapt to individual preferences. The paper describes the involvement of users in the design process and discusses some first findings. Our experiences show that participation of vulnerable users is possible even in the challenging and taboo-related area of toileting. Supportive are a good information policy and a high level of mutual trust among the involved organizations and individuals. The initial findings from participatory design activities are being fed back into the development process of the upcoming first full system prototype which shall enter lab trial stage in 2017 and after a re-design the field trial stage in 2018.

Standard toilets often do not meet the needs of a significant number of older persons and persons with disabilities. The EU funded iToilet project aims at design and development of a new type of ICT enhanced modular toilet system which shall be able to support autonomy, dignity and safety of older persons living at home. Methodologically the project started with gathering user requirements by means of questionnaires, interviews and focus group discussion involving a total of 74 persons, thereof 41 subjects with movement disorders (primary users), 21 caregivers (secondary users) and 12 healthcare managers (tertiary users). Most important wishes were bilateral removable handrails, height and tilt adjustment, emergency detection, simplicity. In parallel to the ongoing technical development participatory design activities have been carried out at user test sites in order to continuously involve users into the design process and to allow quick feedback with regards to early prototype parts. The project currently is working on the finalization of the first prototype ready to enter the lab trial stage in spring 2017. The experiences will be used for redesigning a prototype 2 which is planned to be tested in real life settings early 2018.

Elderly people and persons with a disability may face significant limitations when using the standard "sitting" type water toilet as mostly used in the Western World. In this paper a new type of a stationary robotic toilet is outlined and the concept of the smart interaction between user and envisaged robotic toilet is described. Main functionality are height and tilt adjustment, support of sitting down and standing up, speech interaction, automatic recognition of the user and corresponding preferred settings of the toilet and automatic inference of potential emergency situations. The interaction is challenging due to the very different needs of the target group, the physical contact to the robotic system (actually the user is sitting on the robot) and the taboo area of toileting. First prototypes are currently being built and are planned to enter the evaluation stage early 2017.

In the European Union (EU) research project "HOBBIT" prototypes of assistive robots were developed in order to support a more secure and independent life style and trials were run at the homes of elderly users. The project "personAAL" aimed at investigating whether distinct behavioral forms of a robot ("personality"), despite an identical basic function (e.g. bringing a message) are perceived as different personalities by the test persons. For this study a robot was equipped with two types of behavior, one more introverted (purely function-oriented, impersonal and factual) and the other more extroverted (lively and enriched). The two types of behavior were demonstrated to 13 test persons (mostly older persons and experts from the care domain). Nearly all of the test persons (12 out of 13) perceived a difference with respect to the behavior of the robot. Of the test persons 1 preferred the introverted robot, 9 the extroverted behavior of the robot and 3 had no preferences or stated that the preference depended on the context. The evaluation of answers to the Godspeed questionnaire resulted in significantly different perceptions of "anthropomorphism" and "animated" as well as in the total evaluation. It is also remarkable that no significant differences could be found for "likeability" and "perceived security". There was also no significant correlation between the preferred behavior of the robot and the self-assessment of the test person as being more introverted or extroverted. From these results it can be concluded that acceptance of a robot does not solely depend on the mere function, which of course is a precondition but that it is advisable to offer a choice between different types of behavior in order to optimize acceptance.