Elopement and becoming lost are serious and costly public safety problems that will even worsen in the future as the incidence of dementia increases unless the public is better educated about dementia and persons with dementia become better integrated into our society. FreeWalker technologies enable persons with cognitive difficulties to continue moving freely outdoors. They can continue to leave their homes and be active outside with FreeWalker functioning as a safety net in the background. The FreeWalker System will use GPS localisation and take into account the information of the daily schedule and habits of the person to understand where the person is going. If there are indications for getting lost or disoriented different counter measures and help will be initiated. FreeWalker will integrate market-ready components of MOPAS (localisation), HappyWalker (navigation) and CareCenter Software (emergency database) and from running AAL project DayGuide (a guide through problematic tasks of daily live.
Objectives
FreeWalker will integrate several proven components of AAL assistive devices and technologies, for a flexible and versatile solution for guiding and monitoring elderly or impaired persons in the outdoor environment and supporting caregivers by providing emergency information to recover disoriented persons safely. The primary target groups in FreeWalker are persons with cognitive impairments living at home or in an intramural care organisation, and their (in)formal carers. We aim to promote person with frailty to stay active and physically healthy by reducing the fear of going out.
Expected Results and Impacts
A trial with over 150 people in the Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland will lead to a solution that reduces the stress for caregivers and enables elderly people to stay longer active. FreeWalker will also try to integrate a fall detection solution, so that the people can be found as soon as possible and thereby reduce the consequent health problems.During the project FreeWalker will already reach the market and must at the end of the project be a well-known solution in the partner countries, marketed by Ivengi.com and CareCenter Software GmbH.
Partners
Partners involved in the Free Walker project
- Project name: Free Walking Elderly
- Website: www.freewalker.eu, www.freewalker-aal.eu
- Coordinator: AIT – Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH
- Duration: 36 Months
- Starting Date: 01.04.2018
- Total budget: € 2,69 mil
- Public contribution: €1,74 mil
Contacts
Martin Litzenberger
E.: martin.litzenberger@ait.ac.at
T.: +43(0) 50550-4111
