Ambient assisted living

Abstract

The quality of care practice is difficult to judge. Indeed, support and care provision is very personal, i.e., assessments are individual and lead to specific care packages, involving social services, health workers, care agencies. On the other hand, we are often reluctant to discuss it with others. We expect privacy in our own affairs and confidentially from those to whom we disclose them. There- fore, we are in an urgent need for new, technological and formal approaches to problem solving, as the increase of population with special care requirements (e.g., the elderly) has become a reality in recent years and it is known to continue, even speeding up, in the years ahead. Following this line of thought, it is one`s goal to present the VirtualECare framework, an intelligent multi-agent system able to monitor, interact and serve its customers, which are in need of care services, based in open standards, like OSGi and R-OSGi, expecting not only to fulfil the objectives referred to above, but also to overcome the problems induced by the use of new technologies and formalisms.