The following study gives a status quo analysis of the research landscape and the availability of products within the scope of information and communication technologies for use by elderly people. It has been performed on behalf of the European Commission, DG Information Society and Media, Directorate ICT for Citizens and Businesses, ICT for Health Unit and is a condensed edition of a former long version. The study furnished evidence about the extent of ongoing developments in ICT-based solutions which support independent living for elderly. Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) is used throughout the study as an abbreviated term for this thematic area. Resulting from several European funding programmes, AAL has been evolved towards a technical term comprising related approaches.
The present study is the first comprehensive data collection in this field. It comprises about 1000 organisations (private and public) active in AAL all over Europe, 180 AAL products already on the market and about 150 research projects related to AAL topics. Based on this data, an appropriate estimation of central topics, stakeholders, national and European research activities and the orientation of existing products was performed. Besides the data on products and research projects allowing an impression of the status quo, the study followed the hypothesis that organisations active in research projects also furnish information about future developments. Therefore, the study also deploys a classification of relevant stakeholders in AAL.
Learning Change 