Future changes to smart home based on AAL healthcare service

As South Korea is expected to become a super-aged society by 2025, diligent efforts have been made to reduce the social burden by promoting a productive and healthy elderly lifestyle. Individuals are encouraged to prepare throughout their early lives and construct a healthy residential environment. As one of several alternatives home healthcare is using the Internet of Things - referred as ambient assisted living (AAL) - is drawing much attention. Although the individual technologies of healthcare and smart home have undergone rapid development, there has been little integration between the two. Moreover, many technological developments do not consider the actual lives of the elderly. To effectively respond to the aging problem, the two technologies should be integrated and applied to residential environments based on daily routines of the elderly. The purpose of this study is to suggest the future direction for healthcare in smart homes in South Korea. To achieve this goal, we first examined the possibility of embedding healthcare services into smart homes in a non-invasive manner. Second, in-depth interviews were conducted with elderly citizens and silver town operators to elucidate characteristics of the elderly, and a healthcare scenario was suggested that could be applied to each smart home room.