Fraunhofer AICOS’s projects FCC – Fall Risk Assessment and SmartFeet will be on display at Semana das Ciências Aplicadas na Saúde 2015 (SCAS2015), in Coimbra. Fraunhofer AICOS will participate in SCAS2015, a large event of free screenings, hosted by AE-ESTeSC with the support of ESTeSC.

The event will take place on April 20-26, at Dolce Vita Coimbra. This is a special occasion, since this year SCAS celebrates 10 years. The event had great affluence in the past editions, with a total of 500 000 visitors and about 200 000 health evaluations provided to the citizens of the central region of Portugal. This year, many visitors are expected, including seniors who can try out the SmartFeet and the Fall Risk Assessment tool of Fraunhofer Portugal. Therefore, participants will have the chance to evaluate their fall risk and then to perform exercises that reduce this risk, thus preventing falls. Additionally, they can pick up flyers with tips to prevent falls.

We would like to thank AE-ESTeSC for the invitation.

If you are in the nearby, visit SCAS2015 and discover how to prevent falls.

“Idade do Saber” is an annual fair in Oporto entirely dedicated to seniors.

With the theme “Active lives, healthy lives”, many companies, social institutions and associations presented their activities and provided insights on how seniors can stay active and healthy.

Several demonstrations or activities for seniors were being showcased in the showroom, and there was plenty to choose from: dance, gymnastics, traditional folk music, choir or flower art.

There were also lectures on themes related to health and wellness in third age, such as Reiki, Shiatsu, elderly audition, accessibility for people with motor disabilities, ambient assisted living and makeup workshops.

The AAL4ALL project participated both as an exhibitor and on lectures, letting the community know about many features of the applications developed within this project.
This year, COLABORAR attended the fair and disseminated the project among the attendees, both seniors and people in charge of the institutions, as an opportunity for seniors to actively participate in the design of future technologies to improve older adults’ lives.

The paper entitled “Aspects of human-centered design in HCI with older adults: Experiences from the field”, on project COLABORAR, was presented at the 5th International Conference on Human-Centered Software Engineering 2014, which took place in beautiful Paderborn, in Germany.

Amongst the participants were different scholars with whom we had the opportunity to share our experience regarding the creation, maintenance and management of a user network to support several R&D projects. Cases such as that of COLABORAR are not as frequent as one might expect, so our experience might be helpful to other research groups who wish to create a similar network. This will allow them to adopt truly human-centred processes which, in turn, will foster the development of really useful products.

Because it was accepted and presented at the conference, the paper was included in the conference proceedings book, published by Springer. COLABORAR is very proud!

 

ChefMyself is being presented at the AAL Forum, an international conference that brings together researchers, investors, entrepreneurs and experts from the fields related to technological solutions for elders and it takes place in Bucharest, in Romania.

This year, the kitchen robot and some ingredientes traveled to Romania along with the tablet application so that the participants have the opportunity of assisting to real-time demonstrations of ChefMyself, and perhaps taste the healthy and delicious meals prepared at AALForum!

COLABORAR is proud to announce that this resulted from the interviews and tests conducted by Fraunhofer AICOS (and also by other partner institutions of the Consortium of ChefMyself)!

Thank you all the participants of COLABORAR that contributed for this project.

We promised we would have surprises regarding the COLABORAR project… So, here they are: this is the 2nd year that COLABORAR is being presented at the AAL Forum.

This year, the application developed for COLABORAR is being presented. It allows user registration and inserting questionnaires data, it also allows us to keep track of the institutions in the network and the activities performed.

The new booklet of COLABORAR is also being distributed.This material was prepared for the institutions get to know more about COLABORAR: the institutions in the network, the activities, the experiences of the volunteer users, the Website and the Fraunhofer AICOS’s location.

 

Last week Fraunhofer Portugal showcased its projects at the AAL Forum 2013. The three-day event was held at Louis De Geer Konsert & Kongress in Norrköping, Sweden.

The AAL Forum is an annual large technological fair, welcoming researchers, industry companies and participants from all over Europe who work around the topic of ageing. It’s an opportunity to discuss a variety of issues related to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for ageing well and to promote products and/or services in the area of Ambient Assisted Living.

This year, COLABORAR also attended the AAL Forum and it was a great opportunity to interact with other research institutions, companies and other institutions related to older adults. In the future, we hope to stay in touch and become partners in new international research projects, exchange experiences and together contribute to shape future technologies!