Designing Assistive Tools for the Market

In this chapter we consider assistive environments and discuss the possible benefits for an aging population. As a study case we summarize the current state of a research project taking place in collaboration with Galliera Hospital (Genoa, Italy). A protected discharge model is being developed to assist elderly users after they have been dismissed from the hospital and before they are ready to go back home, with the perspective of coaching them towards a healthy lifestyle. We focus in particular on the vision-based modules designed to automatically estimate a frailty index of the patient that would allow physicians to assess the patient's health status and state of mind. We contribute to this frailty index by supplying a set of motility features obtained by continuously analyzing the motion patterns of the patient. We show very promising results which have received positive feedback from the geriatricians participating in the project.