ALMS Project
Overview
Older people are still often cared for in institutional settings, including hospitals and care homes, when the vast majority can be, and wish to be, in their own homes. The use of technology, known as telecare, to support formal and informal care mechanisms, and maintain older people’s quality of life in their own homes, has been widely discussed and is now central to emerging government policy on caring for older people.
Community alarm systems (1st generation telecare) have been around for 40 years and are in the homes of 1.6M users in the UK. 2nd generation telecare has recently been introduced and is being provided to many of those people who have 1st generation systems. The proposed advanced lifestyle monitoring system is part of the 3rd generation of telecare and will provide sophisticated monitoring of the well-being of older people in their own home. The benefit of this LM system is that it will provide early detection of factors likely to lead to a future requirement for institutional care and will allow early intervention to prevent loss of independence.
This project brings together robust clinical research on the triggers for older people needing more care with the latest research on machine learning to produce a means of detecting these key triggers.
Project was handed over to Guido Sanguinetti when Neil Lawrence moved to Manchester. The project is sponsored by NIHR Health Technology Assesment Project Ref 4933 and is a collaboration with Professor Mark Hawley of Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Dr Simon Brownsell of Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Steve Sadler of Tunstall Group Ltd.