Young engineer leads project subsidised by BMBF Healthy ageing with modern technology

Society is ageing progressively, but it is also getting progressively digitalized. Fitness wristbands or parking assistant systems are used in everyday life. Over the next five years, eight research groups will work on new technical systems which are suitable for people of all ages. One of them is led by Dr. Aysegül Dogangün from the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE). The Project is called PAnalytics. It is a self-monitoring for people at the age of 50 and over, with which they can control and evaluate their health comprehensively. All teams are subsidised by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) with main focus on “Human Computer Interaction for Demographic Change”. A total of 22 million Euros will be invested.

The BMBF chose particularly talented postdoctoral researchers for its junior research program. Aysegül Dogangün, 32 years old, was born in Berlin, where she studied Computer Science and Psychology. After 6 years of conducting research at the Fraunhofer Institute for Microelectronic Circuits and Systems in Duisburg, she now continues her research at UDE. So far the engineer has mainly focused on assistant systems for medicine and health care, which she will continue with the work on PAnalytics. The name is derived from “Personal Analytics”:  Collecting personal data for changing one’s lifestyle. Although systems for health related self-monitoring already exist today (blood-pressure monitors, intelligent scales), it is still up to the user to interpret the results and a holistic approach is missing.

It would be more helpful to unite data from different tools and daily activities and to evaluate them automatically. This includes information from ambient sensors, speech, gesture, the living environment, data from social networks as well as data provided by the user him- or herself.

“Let’s assume there is a man in his mid-fifties. He is mostly fit, but a beginning heart insufficiency has been diagnosed. This is why he wants to lead an even more health-conscious life”, Aysegül Dogangün states as example. Such an interactive, networked system would be individually tailored to the user, integrated into the daily routine and would cover all areas of life.

“So in the morning, he could see on his tablet how well  he has slept; he gets tips on how he can systematically engage in physical activity and a step counter measures whether he moves enough during the day”, says the researcher. “He can put this information, vital data as well as information about weight and personal condition on his online profile. There he can access the evaluations of the last weeks anytime.”

An automatic activity detection shows him if he behaves normally and recommends him what he can change eventually. “If it is advisable to consult a doctor this will be signalised. The collected data could be helpful for the doctor during the treatment, too - if the user wishes so”, says Dogangün.

It is important that it is always up the user to decide what happens with his or her data. This is why data security and data protection are one challenge in the project. Another one is to visualize the information in a way that it can be read on the small screen of smartphones or tablets. These challenges will also be addressed by Aysegül Dogangün and her interdisciplinary team. “PAnalytics neither wants to patronize people nor to keep them under surveillance”, she stresses. “It shall only give recommendations to optimize one’s behaviour for leading a healthier life.”

Ulrike Bohnsack

19.01.2015

Translation: Katharina Kloppenborg