ALADDIN

GR, DE; IT; SP; UK

01-09-2009

01-11-2012

The projects wanted to develop an innovative self-management solution for patients suffering from dementia and their carers. It used an integrated platform to assess patients from a distance and manage the data in order to facilitate personalised interventions and adaptive care. In particular it has four main aims:

• Supporting maintaining health and functional capability, through the risk assessment and the early detection of deterioration symptoms of the patients and distress signs of their carers;
• Providing the means for the self-care and the self-management of chronic conditions, through the development social networking as well as educational tools;
• Providing added value to the individual, leveraging his/her quality of life, and supporting the moral and mental upgrade of both patients and carers;
• Enhancing the home-as-care environment through the provision of user-friendly ICT tools for frequent, unobtrusive monitoring.

The main driver was to alleviate the burden of carers in order to prevent or delay, as much as possible, the institutionalisation of patients. Therefore an innovative model/methodology was developed for health promotion, risk assessment, prevention, self-management and education. A second driver was to offer ICT tools to efficiently manage diseases at home by health care institutions. A third driver was the need to effectively manage patient data to improve health and social care and to reduce their cost.

 Care Recipients
 Informal carers
 Paid assistants
 Formal carers

Not available

 Independent Living
 Information and learning for carers
 Personal Support and Social Integration for carer
 Care coordination

The integrated ALADDIN system provides the technology and methodology for:

• Efficient patient follow-up
• Early detection of symptoms that predict decline
• Adaptive care / personalised intervention
• Networking / socialisation / education / cognitive stimulation
• Prevention and relief of distress for the carer
• Decision support tools for clinicians

The ALADDIN website is user friendly and accessible with an on-line user guide for carers with different levels of ICT literacy. It explains how the computer system works and helps to solve problems. Moreover, it covers education, games and social networks. Lastly, it explains how to fill-in the questionnaires on patients, their main carers and other carers, for data collection.

The system worked through devices for monitoring the care recipient’s health conditions and preventing the risk, such as blood pressure, weight and activity detectors, and personal computer with internet connection for networking, socialisation, education and cognitive stimulation.

Both public and private

Public service funding: Government, Regional, Local Authorities, non-profit public entities

R&D project funded by the AAL-JP scheme.

Other: please specify

Private companies involved in the project: ATOS and BSA, Badalona Serveis Assistencials.

Not applicable

This was an R&D project funded by the AAL-JP scheme and there is no available information whether the prototype was further developed and whether the Aladdin system have eventually been marketed.

€ More than 500,000

€ More than 500,000

Total 1,980,757 Euros of which 1,480,020 Euros from public funding.

 Authorities
 Private Care Sector
 Health and Social Care Systems
 Third Sector
 Private Companies

Not available

Not applicable

 Informal Carers
 Health Professionals
 Social Care Professionals
 Privately-Hired Care Assistants (inc. Migrant Care Workers)
 Volunteers

Clinicians monitored and analysed the health of care recipients and their carers.

Professionals provided emotional support and information.

The partners belonged to three distinct groups based on their specific expertise and role in the project:

• The RTD Providers’ group was composed of three academic institutions (FRAUNHOFER- FOCUS, ICCS and UniBo) with complementary expertise in clinical psychiatry, biomedical engineering, medical informatics, telemedicine and home care.
• The Users’ group comprised three clinical sites (Psychiatric Hospital of Attica; NHNN and BSA). Clinical sites provided the medical knowledge for developing and assessing the system (clinical protocols and procedures) and pilot tested the overall platform.
• The Technology Providers’ group included two commercial companies (ATOS and AETHNIA) that provided the ICT technology (semantics, data mining, systems integration, S/W and H/W development).

Not involved

11 - 100

Twenty participants (pairs of patients and their carers) were recruited at each pilot site, i.e. a total of 60 pairs. Ten participants from each site were then randomly allocated to the control group (n=30), and ten to the platform group (n=30).

Promotional channels were:

• Group Based Promotions
• Media
• Information on Demand
• Events
• Workshops
• Publications

Due to the multidisciplinary nature of the project, the promotional strategy involved different types of target audiences and channels. The three groups of partners of the ALADDIN consortium had distinct communication interests and plans.

The service may positively impact on:

• Informal carers by helping to reconcile care and work, improve their social life and health
• Paid assistants by helping to improve their social life and health.
• Older people by helping to improve their health and social relationships.

Other benefits:

ICT acceptability by carers and care recipients;
delay or avoid related complications of chronic diseases (Torkamani et al., in press).

The service may have a positive impact on private organisations that provide care by helping to save costs and optimise resources.

Furthermore, it positively affects companies and the labour market by helping to avoid added costs for substituting/replacing the worker who has to stay at home with the care recipient (Torkamani et al., in press).

The service could benefit public authorities, the NHS and social care services by helpings to save the costs of home caring and hospitalisation and optimising financial and human resources (Torkamani et al., in press).

Strengths:

1. ALADDIN allowed remote monitoring of the carer’s emotional and psychological state and the patient’s cognition and behaviour, to aid the early detection of carer distress and the symptoms of patient deterioration.
2. ALADDIN enabled personalised healthcare and more efficient information processing.

Weaknesses:

1. Since the project ended November 2012, its positive results were time limited, although they should have been analysed to determine whether the project deserved to be refinanced.
2. Since formal carers were not directly involved, there was the risk of formal and informal care sectors not collaborating.

Opportunities:

1. Developing educational guidelines for a healthier lifestyle, for instance, regarding the optimal organisation of the patient’s home, dressing or eating habits.
2. Enhancing the home-as-care environment through frequent, unobtrusive monitoring and user-friendly ICT tools.

ALADDIN was a multidisciplinary project involving technology research and innovation, clinical novelty, policy considerations, harmonisation of business workflows and efficiency aspects. The service was user-friendly and flexible, two features favouring transfer to other countries. In addition, the service seems to have reduced part of health and social care costs and improved the self-management of users. Even though the project targeted dementia patients and their carers, the solution probably would have been easily adaptable across Europe for the management of other mental disorders or chronic conditions. Overall its scalability and transferability prospects were positive.

References:

Torkamani M. , McDonald L., Saez Aguayo I., Kanios C.,. Katsanou M.-N, Madeley L., Limousin P. DLees., A. J., Haritou M., Jahanshahi M.and the ALADDIN Collaborative Group, A Controlled Pilot Study to Evaluate a Technology Platform for the Assisted Living of People with Dementia and their Carers, Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, (accepted 4 February 2014, In Press).

The case-study was updated by Mrs Maria Haritou, Project Manager and Senior Research Scientist, Institute of Communication and Computer Systems, National Technical University of Athens, in March 2014.

Publications

Cuno S., Glickman Y., Baboshin A., Haritou M., Serretti A., Androulidakis A., Calati R. (2011) Management, Monitoring and Supporting Dementia Patients at Home by ALADDIN, eChallenges e-2011 Conference Proceedings, Paul Cunningham and Miriam Cunningham (Eds), IIMC International Information Management Corporation, 2011, ISBN: 978-1-905824-27-4.

Haritou M., Cuno S., Glickman Y., Androulidakis A, Baboshin A., ALADDIN: A home care system for the efficient monitoring of elderly people with dementia”, Proceedings of the AAL Forum 2011, in press.

Haritou M., Glickman Y., Androulidakis A., Xefteris S., Anastasiou A., Baboshin A., Cuno S., Koutsouris D. (2012) A technology platform for a novel home care delivery service to patients with dementia, Special Issue on Ubiquitous Computing in Healthcare (UCH), Journal of Medical Imaging and Health Informatics, 2012; Vol. 2(1): pp. 49-55(7)

Haritou M., Glickman Y. (2011) ALADDIN: a wish come true for dementia patients, Projects Magazine, Issue of September 2011, pp. 18-20

Xefteris S., Androulidakis A., Haritou M., Baboshin A., Glickman Y., D'Andria F., Tserpes K., Varvarigou T. (2011) Enabling Risk Assessment and Analysis by Event Detection in Dementia Patients Using a Reconfigurable Rule Set, The 4th International Conference on PErvasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments (PETRA2011), Crete, Greece, 25-27 May 2011.

Xefteris S., Haritou M., Tserpes K., Serretti A., Llopart J. R., Calati R., Varvarigou T., (2011) Requirements and Specifications’ Analysis for a Monitoring System to Support the Self-management of Dementia Patients at Home,available at http://www.aladdin-project.eu/files/PETRA2011_Xefteris etal.pdf

Perakis K., Haritou M., Koutsouris D. (2009) ALADDIN, technology platform for the assisted living of dementia elderly Individuals and their carers, the International Workshop of Ambient Assisted Living 2009 (IWAAL'09)

Omatu S. et al. (Eds.) (2009): IWAAN 2009, Part II, LNCS 5518, pp. 878-881, 2009, Salamanca, Spain, June 10-12, 2009.

Sáez I., Oliveras M., Ciudad M. J., Fort I., Llopart J. R., Haritou M. and Aladdin Research Consortium (2011) A Technology Platform for the Assisted Living of Dementia Elderly Individuals and their Carers, Poster presentation at the 7th Congress of the European Union Geriatric Medicine Society (EUGMS), 28 September 2011, Malaga, Spain.

Dr. Maria Haritou
Senior Research Scientist,
Heroon Polytechniou 9,
15773 Zografou, Athens, Greece,

Telephone:+302107723893
FAX:+302107722431
E-mail: mhari@biomed.ntua.gr
URL: www.iccs.gr,www.biomed.ntua.gr

UserGuide:http://www.aladdin-project.eu/files/ALADDIN%20user%20guide%20v1%201%20%20without_pers_info.pdf