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Carebook: Assisting elderly people by social networking Host Publication: Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Interdisciplinary Research on Technology, Education and Communication (ITEC2010) Authors: V. Naessens, M. Emilov Mihaylov, S. De Jong, K. Verbeeck and A. Nowé Publication Date: May. 2010 Number of Pages: 4
Abstract: This paper presents CareBook, a digital platform that assists elderly people by
social networking.
In Belgium (and many other European countries), the avarage age of individuals is
increasing signicantly. Many governmental as well as commercial initiatives aim at
supporting elderly people in daily tasks. Examples are cooking services, cleaning ser-
vices and health related services (such as washing, pedicure . . . ). However, society can
no longer sustain the huge costs of these services. Moreover, some tasks can easily be
performed by relatives (i.e. people in the social network around a person that needs
assistance). For instance, a neighbour can cook frequently or a daughter can clean the
house. Although relatives can reduce the increasing work load and costs, many elderly
people are reluctant to rely on their social network for two main reasons. First, unfair
task allocations may put a burden on certain relatives. Second, the execution of certain
tasks (such as meal services) must be guaranteed daily. Many relatives may in fact be
willing to oer health care support to patients although they do not want to give a
commitment to oer it daily and for a long period. A fair digital platform for building
and maintaining a social network around elderly persons may overcome these barriers.
Sites, such as LinkedIn[4], FaceBook[3] and Twitter[7], show that maintaining social
networks is nowadays an important part of people's activities in the virtual world of
the internet. Contacts with friends and relatives on social network sites are seen as
easier to maintain, but equally relevant, as real-life contacts. Our platform is inspired
by the ease-of-use and potential of social network sites. Clearly, the requirements for
our platform dier greatly from those of social network sites. For instance, our plat-
form requires the support of more advanced services than only generic communication
services, and we need to devote even more attention to advanced security and privacy
issues[5][6]. These requirements are driven by the high sensitivity of data that must
often be released to/by caregivers.
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