I.Premise

Following the change of social structure and increasing dual-income family, the ratio of working married women has reached 48.38% according to the statistics of Budget and Accounting Department, Executive Yuan in 2005.  People today are busy in daily life and have changed living pattern from three generations living under the same roof in the past to core family.  The percentage of self-care elders is increasing and the elder residence becomes a new living patter for elders as corresponding to the trend of social demand.   

Chang Gung Health and Culture Village expected to build a healthy and cultural community providing complete health care mainly for elders through professional medical resources of Chang Gung system in 1992.  After 7 years of planning and 6 years of construction, “Chang Gung Health and Culture Village” was opened for the registration in 2005.  It is the first domestic “continuing care retirement community” including: hardware, health medical treatment, village governance, service facilities, overall community development, living care, cross-community interaction such items.  Health and Culture Village provides complete health evaluation, health plan, health promotion and health maintenance providing elders with physical, mental, spiritual and social and environmental health life.  The barrier-free space, green landscape design and emergency rescue facilities are available in the whole village that provide safe living environment to the elders.  

There are now 587 households and 716 persons living in the village with age 81.4 in average (based on statistics as of 2016.11.30)

 II.Smart Elders Residence

Following communication technology enhancement and emerging information network, people start thinking how to introduce technology into their lives and achieve the vision of smart life.   Architecture and Building Research Institute, MOI indicates “the mobile communication, network, consumer electronic products as required by smart life certainly need general standard and sharing platform to eliminate mutual interface in the future and further establish more direct and friendly communication channel between human and machine allowing people be more convenient and happy in their living spaces and own the good smart life”.   

The goals of smart living space for elders are to carry out “safe and ease”, “comfortable and convenient”, “health care: and “sustainable energy saving” such concepts in living space.    Health and Culture Village has constituted ten smart living scenarios for elders: (1) going out, (2) access safety, (3) lavatory, (4) comfortable energy saving light, (5) climate sensor, (6) relatives and friends, (7) personal physical monitoring, (8) falling detection, (9) convenient balance diet, (10) brilliant activities.  It is hoped to achieve “safe and ease”, “comfortable and convenient”, “health care” and “sustainable energy saving” such four concepts of smart living through closely linked scenarios providing elders with complete home services.    

1.Going out

The scenario system has integrated with the security function of Health and Culture Village.  When an elder goes out, he/she may turn off all the electronic appliances and active security system simply by taking out the card without any worry for negligence.

2.Access security

There are three access controls, the gate of village, elevator and the door of residence respectively.  The residence needs to use his/her RFID card to slide the three access control system.  When the residence does not slide the card within 12 hours, the system will actively alert the administrator to advance safety care.   

3.Lavatory

As to the bathroom of smart home for elders, in addition to comfortable lavatory environment, the most important concern shall be the safety.  Therefore, in addition to the water, air temperature and light adjustment based on current situation, the elder may activate the emergency call system in the bathroom where there is emergency condition occurs.   

4.Comfortable energy saving light

The walkway light is designed from top to down, which is comfortable light sunshine.  It is a two-way lighting control providing automatic adjustment based on outdoor illumination and the LED lamps are adopted to save the power. 

5.Climate sensor mode

Climate sensor mode is mainly to correspond with changeable climate in Gueishan area.  When it is hot or cold, the system will adjust the room temperature automatically to provide elders with relatively stable temperature. 

6.Relatives and friends

The health of elders shall be sound in physical, mental and social aspects. Therefore, the scenario system integrate related communication equipment through image contact interface such as: Internet telephone, telephone and mobile phone.  

7.Personal physical monitoring

Health care is indispensible function for elders’ residence.  The personal health plan will be developed according to personal conditions.  The system integrates related physical measurement instruments (blood pressure, blood sugar, height, weight) for elders to measure by him/her.  The system will record the daily physical and activities information of the elders and the health center may control the health of elders anytime through the connection with central platform.  

Set up home health care system in the community.  The major hardware components include data collection box to collect the blood pressure, blood sugar, oxygen content, weight and electrocardiogram such physical data, which are outsourced to ICT companies for the production.  Chang Gung University is responsible to make Human Machine Interface (HMI) be more friendly allowing elders, 30% or more among them over age 65, who have no idea about the computer may adapt to such care system operation.   

8.Falling detection

In case that residence in village falls, the falling detection mode set in places where the residences may fall easily would detect the falling of residence immediately and the administrator of this village will come to rescue instantly to reduce the time of delay rescue for residence having accident. 

9.Convenient balance diet

The healthy and organic diets designed by professional dietitian are satisfactory to the health of meals for elders and avoid nutrition deficiency.  The payment is charged via sliding card and residences may use his/her RFID card to charge his/her account.  The elders may unnecessary to bring a lot of money and avoid lost money.    

10.Brilliant activities

The village will hold different kinds of activities, social clubs and classes allowing residents to participate with, develop their personal interests and add entertainments to the village life.  Residences may participate in various activities via sliding card and the village may confirm if residences have attended social activities or not in ordinary time.  

It could be known from the card sliding record to understand what activities do the residence like, for example, the static or dynamic activities.  The card sliding record may be used to identify the preferences of residents.  

The life memory interaction wall of “Chang Gung Health and Culture Village” has some memorial old photos shown on the screen for elders to browse, touch and zoom out.  Elders may also take part in interactive floor exercise and interactive table of “healthy earth ecology”.  Through interactive ways, elders may create their quality lives.    

III.Effects

1.Health Aspect

It is known from the diagram above that the emergency visit rate was 3.13% in 2015 and 3.73% in 2014.  The number had significant drop and was far behind the emergency visit rate 4.11% of elders aged over 60 in Taiwan.

It is known from the diagram above that the hospitalization rate was 1.72% in 2015 and 2.25% in 2014.  The number also had significant drop and was far behind the emergency visit rate 17.07% of elders aged over 60 in Taiwan.

2.Activity Aspect

Information Period 2014~2015

Note:

Item 02 Through active care and interview, social workers continuously recognize the conditions of residences aiming at environment, mental, physical and social such four dimensions and list those who need intensive care into intensive care cases and increase the frequency of visitation.  Meanwhile, the living improvement conditions of residences would be followed through the cross-department case discussions.

Item 03 Diversified and brilliant activities are planned to carry out “capable elderly” and “live and learn”.  The record also includes the attendance of all residences in term of participating in activities.  Aiming at low attendance residences, the village would provide care individually to understand their interests and improve their participation rate.   

Energy saving and carbon reduction

In respect of energy saving and carbon reduction, the village adopts comfortable energy saving indoor light and two-way control lighting for automatic adjustment according to outdoor illumination.  The LED lamps are also used to achieve the energy saving and carbon reduction effects, which has been significantly reduced for 10%.