Visitrack: A pervasive service for monitoring the social activity of older adults living at home

Abstract

Advances in medical science allow people to live longer and more independently than some decades ago. However, this does not directly help older adults improve their mental wellbeing. Several studies show that elderly people usually suffer from some level of social isolation that negatively impacts on their physical and mental conditions. As a way to address such a problem, this paper presents Visitrack, a pervasive and unobtrusive service conceived to monitor the social activity of older adults living at home. Based on sensing data retrieved and processed by the system, it can take several actions. For instance, informing family members and friends about long periods with no social activity at the older adult’s home. The proposed service has been evaluated through a controlled experimental study, obtaining highly accurate results.