How can new technologies contribute to the innovation in social and medical attention? How can they support health and help to avoid the dependence of the disabled and the old people?
Experts from the Telefónica R&D centres in Madrid and Granada, Telvent Interactiva (Barcelona), the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Commerce and the Universities of Deusto, Politécnica de Madrid, Granada y Málaga, are looking for an answer to these and other related questions together in Almuñécar during this week convened by the Mediterranean Centre of the University of Granada (Spain).
Under the title “Ambient intelligence to support health and an independent life”, Alberto Prieto Espinosa (director of the Department of Computer Architecture and Technology of the UGR) and Esteban Pérez Castrejón (expert on IT applied to health and welfare of Telefónica I+D) are the directors of a course focused on the contribution of IT (information technology) to people’s quality of life.
The challenges are especially focused on three work areas: social and medical attention, population ageing and social integration of persons with special needs (old and disabled people mainly).
Ambient Intelligence
Experts talk about Ambient Intelligence (AmI) referring to the interaction between persons and computers which makes their life easier. “AmI intends to get an intuitive and natural interaction between users and computers, in such a way that they adapt in an intelligent manner to their needs without a great effort.
“That is why the AmI consists of a set of technologies essential to support an independent way of life”, says Prieto Espinosa-; who alludes to specific communication instruments such as systems for finding people and mobile objects in houses, hospitals or special residences, the revolution of wireless networks, systems for the improvement of motor and cognitive abilities, telecaring of chronic patients or home tele-hospitalization systems.
Disabled people and persons in a “coma”
Among the present and future examples, Prieto mentions the use on a large scale of IT for the great disabled’s wheelchairs. Man-computer communication has already permited a great mobility; however, future is more ambitious: present research allows to develop prototypes able to dialogue with computers thanks to the detection, recognition and interpretation of their brain waves.
It is not just the picture of almost science fiction Steven Hawking’s wheelchair and his metallic voice, constructed through a computer. “We are thinking about detecting, through BCI interfaces, (brain-computer), the potentials evoked by the disabled; they will have to choose one option from a screen by just focusing their attention in one of them, and the computer will be able to answer according to it”.
The projects of Prieto and his group include the research work aimed at Miguel Ángel López, whose challenge is to establish communication with persons without any kind of mobility and even with patients in a situation of diminished consciousness (coma). It is well known that some persons have been in a coma for some time and when they woke up they said they could hear and process the aditive information they received. “It opens –he says- the research line we have started: this is about establishing a communication with these persons, thanks to their reactions expressed through brain. In the case of diminished consciousness they can be auditive stimulus or may be visual, considering that it is not possible to communicate through motor muscles (such as voice)”.
This research work, as well as the advances with persons with severe motor trouble con (great disabled) will take several years to reach results outside the laboratory, but the really important about it is that man can find a solution for certain technological challenges if he manages to bring them up suitably. In our case, we have dealt with this from an excellence project of the Andalusian Council. It has had the collaboration of the departments of Computer Architecture and Technology and Experimental Psychology of the University of Granada, together with the Department of Electronic Technology of the University of Málaga.
Attached photo: Researchers A. Prieto y MA López.
Further information: Mediterranean Centre Press. 630 064 328 amarin@ugr.es
