Emotional Wellbeing of Older Adults within Aware Homes - Detection and Intervention

Supporting positive emotional wellbeing is a critical challenge in an ageing population. Aware homes have significant potential to enhance the lives of older adults, extending the period of healthy ageing, through monitoring their health and wellbeing, detecting decline and applying interventions to arrest this decline. Our research aims to create a new method of preventative care based on early prediction of changes in emotional state and, based on this early detection, use novel "human-in-the-loop" intervention methods specific to the needs of the individual to improve the quality of life of the older person before severe problems arise. This paper discusses our research involving older adults who live in aware homes. We discuss our approach in detecting changes in emotional wellbeing, combining behavioural data from embedded sensors in the home with self-report data from the residents. We also discuss the challenges involved in interventions to support emotional wellbeing.