Technologies for Active and Assisted Living Research Group

The Technologies for Active and Assisted Living theme is a cross-disciplinary theme that provides the technological arm to IhSHA and that is reflected in our group bringing together researchers with different expertise including staff from different faculties within the University.

Active and Assisted Living (AAL) focuses on the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) to support people's health and safety, increasing their autonomy and well-being, by means of providing services from the automatic supervision of medication to intelligent monitoring.

These services are nowadays in great demand, due to the rapidly ageing populations. The European Statistical Office projects that by 2060, the ratio between working and retired people will have passed from four-to-one to two-to-one in the EU. In addition, EU member states spend nowadays approximately a quarter of their GDP on social protection. Such a demographic and economic context raises the concern of whether these high standards can be maintained. For this reason, allowing people to stay active and independent as they grow older is key to tackle the challenge of demographic ageing.