Acceptance of Ambient Intelligence (AmI) in supporting elderly people and people with dementia

Abstract: Advances in communication technology have led to the growth of what is
called Ambient Intelligence (AmI). AmI refers to an environment which is
intelligent and has advanced computing, networking technology and specific
interfaces. It is aware of the specific characteristics of human presence
and personalities, takes care of what people need and is capable of
responding intelligently according to different activities, and even can
engage in intelligent dialogue with the user. Variability of location
and system behavior is a central issue in AmI, where behavior of software
has to change and re-adapt to the different location settings.

AmI refers to an environment that acts on behalf of humans. It is
sensitive, contextualized, responsive, interconnected, transparent, and
intelligent. This environment is coupled with ubiquity of computing devices
that enables it to react differently according to different actions, and
even to take the initiative towards fulfilling human needs. Security,
privacy, and trust challenges are amplified with AmI computing model and
need to be carefully engineered. From software engineering perspective, the
shift towards AmI can be seen abstractly similar to the shift from object
paradigm towards agent one. Objects provide functionality to be exploited,
while agents possess functionality and know how and when to use and offer
it autonomously. Agent paradigm is suitable for implementing AmI
considering AmI as an open complex system. Moreover, developers argue that
agent paradigm is useful for engineering all aspects of such intelligent
systems.

These days, the large diversity of needs in a home-based patient population
requires complex technology. Meeting those needs technically requires the
use of a distributed approach and the combination of many hardware and
software techniques. Furthermore, this service should be accepted in all
scales and should be sufficient enough to meet all the requirements. In
this thesis, I study the factors which can affect the acceptance of AmI
especially when it is used to support elderly people and people with
dementia, and I give suggestions which can improve the acceptance of this
technology.