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On October 6 and 7, the face-to-face meeting of the project DIANA – Digital Intelligent Assistant for Nursing Applications was carried out. The meeting took place in Bucharest, Romania, and was attended by representatives of all work groups and tasks that integrate the consortium: Cáritas Coimbra, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Cogvis, Technical University of Vienna, Geriatrische Clinic St. Gallen, EET Europarts and Bluepoint Consulting.

Cáritas Coimbra was represented by the project manager, Bruna Franceschini, who had the opportunity to present the preliminary results of the pilot project that is taking place in Santo António Nursing Home (a Cáritas Coimbra facility).

The project aims to be an asset in reducing the burden associated with older people’s care, especially those with cognitive decline, and therefore may become a transformative and effective tool in the work routines and responsibilities of formal and informal caregivers.

Through the installation of sensors that innovate in data collection and that have been developed to protect the users’ privacy, the idea is that, through an observational study, the technology developed by the technological partners will be tested in order to act preventively in relation to falls and to identify behaviour patterns that may affect the older people’s quality of life.

The sensors should be capable of issuing warnings about falls and, at this point, the technology already seems to present conclusive and reliable results. In the test period, the sensors installed in the Caritas Coimbra Nursing Home have been able to identify movements that would be considered falls quite accurately.

The project that is heading towards the final stage of activities has a full agenda in the coming months. Firstly, switches that turn the sensors on and off will be integrated in all bedrooms, so that caregivers and the cleaning team can turn them off when not needed (thus avoiding “false positives” regarding fall detection).

In November, the test phase of a bathroom assistant will take place in a Day Care Centre of Cáritas Coimbra. In this test, during some days, the participants will interact with a technology that aggregates sensors and a virtual bathroom assistant. The opinion and considerations of participants and carers will be taken into account in these tests.

Finally, the project’s evaluation activities and new aspects of the ethical dialogue implementation proposed by the recommendations of the European AAL (Active Assisted Living) Programme will take place. Thus, older people, carers, researchers and managers will be integrated to collaborate in giving constructive answers to the developing system.

Follow the social media of Cáritas Coimbra, as all the next steps will be disclosed!