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4. Terminology
There is a lack of standard deļ¬nitions for the terms used in smart housewelfare tech-
nology for the ageing. Inmost research, the terms ambient assisted living (AAL), smart
houses, home automation, welfare technology, ambient intelligence, and others have
beenused interchangeably.
However, in the area of healthcare, the deļ¬nition of terms is essential for them. A
possible reason could be the use of theMeSH (Medical Subject Headings) terms. As
deļ¬ned in [28], āMeSHis theNationalLibraryofMedicineāscontrolledvocabulary the-
saurus, used for indexing articles for theMEDLINE/PubMEDdatabaseā,whichmeans
thatmost article citation is related to a speciļ¬c set ofMeSH terms. The purpose of the
MeSH terms is to focus on relevant citationswhendoing a search of literature. In con-
trast, keywords searchdoesnotnarrowdownthemost relevant citations ina search.
The termās deļ¬nition is the ļ¬rst difference between technology and the healthcare
ļ¬eld.Thus,whilehealthcare researchgenerally focuses itsworkwithMeSHterm, those
working in technologyuse typicallykeywords.
In this section, themost common terms aredeļ¬ned toprovideaguideon themean-
ing of the following concepts:welfare technology,AAL, smart house, activity recogni-
tion, andbehaviourmodelling.
4.1. WelfareTechnology
InNordic countries, the termwelfare technology is commonly referred to as the typeof
technologyused to control the environment, safety, andgeneralwell-being of the older
or disabled people [29]. The goal is to provide the older personwith the option to live
as long as possible in their own home. Asmentioned in the introduction, the Nordic
countries facedemographicchallengeswith thegrowingolderpopulation.Thus,welfare
technologyseems theoptimal solution to this challenge.
The termāwelfare technologyā, as it is, cannotbe found inMeSH.Rather, the term
āwelfareā comprises child, animal, social, andmaternal. Therefore, although welfare
technologyhaswidelybeenused in the technologyļ¬eld, healthcare sciencehas not yet
introducedproperdeļ¬nition throughMeSHfor it.
4.2. AmbientAssistedLiving
Asdeļ¬ned byRashidi, āAssisted living technologies based on ambient intelligence are
called ambient-assisted living (AAL) toolsā [30]. This term yet implies deļ¬ning ambi-
ent intelligence, which refers to digital environments that are sensitive, adaptive, and
responsive tohumanneeds [31].
AALis thus regardedasanumbrella term formostwelfare technologyused tohelp
older people.Ranging frompill reminders [32], improving safety in general, fall detec-
tion systems, houseautomation,monitoring suchasvideo surveillance, andactivitiesof
daily life (ADL) recognition.
AlthoughAALdoesnot appear inMeSH, twoother terms are found.Theļ¬rst, āas-
sisted living facilitiesā is deļ¬nedasāahousingandhealthcare alternativecombining in-
dependencewithpersonal care. It provides a combinationofhousing, personalized sup-
portiveservicesandhealthcaredesigned tomeet theneeds,bothscheduledandunsched-
uled,of thosewhoneedhelpwithactivitiesofdaily livingā.
V.G.Sanchez /WelfareTechnology,Healthcare,andBehaviourModellingāAnAnalysis 299
Intelligent Environments 2019
Workshop Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Intelligent Environments
- Title
- Intelligent Environments 2019
- Subtitle
- Workshop Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Intelligent Environments
- Authors
- AndrƩs MuƱoz
- Sofia Ouhbi
- Wolfgang Minker
- Loubna Echabbi
- Miguel Navarro-CĆa
- Publisher
- IOS Press BV
- Date
- 2019
- Language
- German
- License
- CC BY-NC 4.0
- ISBN
- 978-1-61499-983-6
- Size
- 16.0 x 24.0 cm
- Pages
- 416
- Category
- TagungsbƤnde