Fraunhofer Center for Assistive Information and Communication Solutions – AICOS
Making Sense of Data to Promote Effortless Healthy Eating Habits and Autonomy for Older Adults
Description:
One major cause of older adults’ frailty in many countries is malnutrition. A study from January 2015 reported that 1 in every 6 seniors reaching the emergency room are malnourished (Pereira, Bulik, Weaver, Holland, & Platts-Mills, 2015) and those at risk of malnutrition are estimated to be as much as 2/3. Malnutrition can have serious consequences on one’s health and independence. Being unable to follow a healthy diet will most likely lead older adults into a vicious cycle: functional decline leads to malnutrition and malnutrition leads to further decline.
The project will create a system to gather and manage all the data that is relevant for the recommendation of a healthy diet, coming from different sources: sensors for activity monitoring, user reported data, country-specific food databases, retailers’ information, producers’ information, service providers’ information. By making sense of all the data, the central intelligent system can generate recommendations that range from meals to physical activity or other healthy behaviours and prompt people to adopt a healthier lifestyle against malnutrition. With its intelligent treatment of the data, along with the recommendations, the project will provide the conditions for the ‘flat-rate food’ concept to become a reality.
The project is born out of previous knowledge from the different partners and it is designed to build on a strong contribution from field implementations in the three countries participating in it: Portugal (R&D + food supplier + end-user), United Kingdom (food supplier + end-user) and the Netherlands (independent end-user).
Because food can take various forms, our idea is also to acknowledge and work with these different ways of consuming food, e.g. retailers, food producers, pre-prepared food or the well-known concept of meals-on-wheels.
Partners:
FhP-AICOS (coordinator); Can Cook CIC; Red Ninja Ltd; Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa; Sonae Modelo Continente SA; Unie KBO – Unie van Katholieke Bonden van Ouderen.
Outcome:
To develop a convenient system that leverages the potential of the Internet of Things to guarantee longer living at home by tackling malnutrition. We will do this by:
> Helping older adults manage their groceries shopping;
> Leveraging the power of local communities to assist each other in food related aspects;
> Providing intelligent and healthy food and meal recommendations to older adults based on health characteristics, lifestyle, culture, resources, availability, local production and season;
> Creating a comprehensive system that brings together the needs of consumers, retailers and food producers;
> Proving the concept of ‘flat-rate food’ on field trials.
Download:
Co-funded by:
For any additional information, please contact us using the inquiries form.