CARU cares

CARUcares is about a new way to combine one of the most successful AAL services of the past – emergency calling - with functionalities to support professional caregivers and house care workers. in the process of documenting their caring activities. The result is not only an attractive, non-stigmatizing way to call for help with an increased sense of safety and quality of life for the older people living in assisted living environments. It also adds value to professional caregivers by actually helping them to save time, improving the quality of the care documentation process and letting them focus more on the care activities themselves. Applying stateof-the-art audio and speech recognition technology as well as sensor technology (in one device) allows us to:
· Reliably detect sounds of people actually calling for “help” without the need for body-worn sensors;
· Provide low-barrier, voice-controlled communication features such as opening a synchronous voice channel between the person at home and the caregiver or posting asynchronous voice messages;
· Identify voice commands from caregivers and enrich them with context-information in order to document their care activities immediately, keep their hands free and transfer the information safely to the electronic documentation tool of their choice seamlessly integrating its interfaces;
· Predict arrival times of caregivers and notify the older people using location- and context-aware data;
· Determine behavioral patterns based on the room sensor data which is collected by the device. Anomalies can be detected and behavioral changes or even emergencies are noted early on.