DEsign for healthy ageing: a smart system to decrease LONELINESS for older people (DELONELINESS)

在一个快速老龄化的社会中，孤独是一个越来越令人担忧的健康问题。正如Age UK在2018年指出的那样，140万老年人认为自己经常孤独，据估计，到2025年，这一数字将上升到200万50岁以上的人。孤独感通常被定义为“一个人理想的社会关系水平与已实现的社会关系水平之间的差异”，通常超过三分之一的老年人会经历这种情况。主观的孤独感与一系列负面后果有关，包括身体和精神疾病的患病率增加、全因死亡率和自我伤害的风险。虽然孤独的问题可能会被卫生和社会服务专业人士忽视，但由于封锁，新冠肺炎大流行可能会加速这些问题。进入社会支持网络、社区活动和家庭的机会减少，突显了发现和支持那些在家里孤独的人的必要性。最重要的是完善确定孤独者孤独感的方法，以便及时和有效地进行干预。这项提议旨在开发一种智能监测和通信系统，将多功能电子设备内置在用作可穿戴设备和家用家具的纺织品中，以测量老年人的孤独程度。及时准确地识别老年人的孤独感，将使他们能够在家中做出知情的护理选择。本研究的主要目的是通过定制的多感知监测来确定不同水平的孤独感。这可以用来识别那些有孤独风险的人，并强调有针对性的干预的优先事项。迅速采取行动识别和帮助孤独的老年人将有助于降低出现严重医疗问题的风险，并帮助支持他们独立生活。DELONELINESS是一个跨学科的项目，汇集了来自社会老年学、心理学、设计学、智能复合材料和人工智能(AI)的学术专家和产业合作伙伴以及政策制定者：(I)了解孤独的状况；(Ii)开发一个智能系统来测量和监测孤独。这个多元化的团队代表了来自不同种族、性别认同和职业阶段的个人。

Loneliness is a growing health concern in a rapidly ageing society. As Age UK noted in 2018, 1.4 million older people class themselves as often lonely, and it is estimated this will rise to 2 million people over the aged of 50 by 2025. Loneliness, typically defined as a "discrepancy between one's desired and achieved levels of social relations" is generally experienced by over one third of older people. The subjective feeling of loneliness has been associated with a range of negative outcomes including increased prevalence of physical and mental illness, all-cause mortality, and risk of self-harm. Whilst issues of loneliness may be overlooked by health and social service professionals, the COVID-19 pandemic could have accelerated these issues due to lockdown. Reduced access to social support networks, community events and family highlight the need to detect and support those who are lonely at home. It is of paramount importance to refine methods of identifying loneliness in those who are isolated to allow timely and effective intervention. This proposal aims to develop a smart monitoring and communication system with multifunctional electronics built into textiles used as wearables and home furniture to measure loneliness levels in older people. The timely and accurate identification of loneliness of older people will enable informed care choices at home. The main objective of this research is to determine different levels of loneliness via bespoke multi-sensing monitoring. This could be used to identify those at risk of loneliness and highlight priorities for targeted intervention. Prompt actions to identify and help lonely older people would help to decrease the risk of developing serious healthcare issues and help support them to live independently. DELONELINESS is an interdisciplinary project bringing academic experts from Social Gerontology, Psychology, Design, Smart Composite Material, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) and industrial partners as well as policy makers to: (i) to understand the conditions of being lonely and (ii) to develop a smart system to measure and monitor loneliness. The diverse team represents individuals from a range of ethnicities, gender identifications and career stages.