Just like most of the rest of the world, Europe anticipates that the elderly and disabled portion of its population will grow in the near future. The need to provide assistance to these citizens to improve their quality of life has given rise to major efforts to research and develop new and better ways to provide assisted living. This book summarizes, for the European Commission, the current efforts to develop assisted-living technology and the efforts that are expected in the next 15 years.

The first half of the book describes many different ways in which information and communication technologies can assist people in improving their quality of life. At a personal level, these technologies can help people manage chronic diseases, provide exoskeleton-like machines to help with limb movement, and provide services and devices to help with everyday activities such as dressing and undressing, personal hygiene, and preparation of meals. At the community level, these technologies can improve people’s social lives by providing better means to move about, to participate in recreation, and to communicate, in spite of hearing, speaking, and vision limitations that they may have. In the workplace, these technologies can provide robots and other devices to help people do their work and adjust their environments to better meet their health and comfort needs. All these ideas and others are presented very abstractly. More concrete views of what is envisioned, however, are presented in the form of 15 fictional scenarios that describe how various technologies might benefit individuals.

The second half of the book focuses on the technologies that exist and that need further development to provide the envisioned devices and services to assist people who have limitations. These range from sensors that are on or in a person and sensors placed all over a person’s environment to actuators such as artificial muscles, robots, and robotic appliances. These devices will be networked and controlled by advanced software that anticipates people’s needs and adapts to their changing needs and behavior. Even a robot with a head and hands and service robots are envisioned.

In addition to the technologies and their benefits, the book also discusses issues that should be considered during the development and deployment of such technologies, such as safety and privacy; user friendliness; acceptance by the elderly and disabled; interactions with family, friends, and caregivers; issues concerning the providers of the technologies; the challenges that research and development need to address; and standardization issues. Design methodologies for doing the research and development are also discussed.

In short, the book presents a comprehensive overview of the technologies needed to help us deal with limitations that we already have, or are likely to have as we get older. It should be a significant reference for anyone who is working on such technologies and anyone who is interested in helping people live better lives.