Smart homes to care for the world’s ageing population

A growing priority in the coming years is providing quality and affordable healthcare for the world’s rising elderly population. Recent developments in artificial intelligence could transform the way we care for older generations.

AI deep learning programs can be used for human activity recognition where machines interpret people’s movements within a certain environment. Professor of Machine Learning at MBZUAI Fakherddine Karray is developing innovative algorithms where these tools can be applied to monitor the health and safety of older people and provided in moments of need.

A patient’s blood pressure, body temperature, blood sugar level and other health metrics could be measured by a device called a wearable – for example a smart watch. “Together these devices would coexist and provide us with an excellent description, or semantic representation, of what a person was experiencing at a given time,” Karray said. “And if there was an anomaly in the measurements, a notification would be sent to a healthcare provider to inform them that the patient may be in danger.”