Stairway to elders: Bridging space, time and emotions in their social environment for wellbeing

The physical and mental health in elderly population is an emergent issue which in recent years has become an urgent socio-economic phenomenon. Computer scientists, together with physicians and caregivers have devoted a great research effort to conceive and devise assistive technologies, aiming at safeguarding elder health, while a marginal consideration has been devoted to their emotional domain. In this manuscript we outline the research plan and the objectives of a current project called Stairway to elders: bridging space, time and emotions in their social environment for wellbeing”. Through a set of sensors, which include cameras and physiological sensors, we aim at developing computational methods for understanding the affective state and socialization attitude of older people in ecological conditions. A valuable by-product of the project will be the collection of a multi-modal dataset to be used for model design, and that will be made available to the research community. The outcomes of the project should support the design of an environment which automatically (or semi-automatically) adapts its conditions to the affective state of older people, with a consequent improvement of their life quality.