Silver Care- Students are developing a solution for elders and their caregivers as part of DIHUB Project

No matter of their vitality, elders often need help with everyday tasks and health care. This is why particular member of their family or other caregiver contacts and visits them daily. In order to help caregivers and elders, students started to develop an interesting solution.  

The younger generations use digital technology on a daily basis and cannot imagine a day without their smartphones, watches, laptops and wireless headphones. Encouraged by their younger relatives, more mature persons are starting to familiarize themselves with the digital technology – if not for other reasons, then at least for communication with family members and close friends. This is why Algebra’s graduate students are working on the development of a new solution that would help elders and their caregivers in everyday communication. Students described this as an opportunity to improve the life quality of the elders, but also to provide a great relief for family members who take care for older family members.

The students are working in an interdisciplinary team called Golden Generation. The team consists of seven members that are skilled in different fields – software engineering, digital marketing and data science. Members of the team are Mate Kovilić, Sanja Pečur, Sara Barić, Lucia Matić, Vid Tomišić, Matea Marinić and Ivor Dončević.

Team members highlight that their goal is to create a solution called Silver Care that would consist of mobile app and a smartwatch. Solution would make it easier for young people to care for older family members living alone and in the same time provide older people with a calmer and more organized daily routine.

How would this work? Namely, older people often live alone, and younger people who are their caregivers visit or contact them on a daily basis. Regardless of the vitality of the elder people, their caregivers contact them almost daily and support them in the purchase of medicines. In addition, older people need care and attention, which is why their daily routine is often largely dedicated to their health issues.

The team is therefore working on a Silver Care solution that will help elders manage their daily routine while informing their families and caregivers of any issues. Namely, the Silver Care application would remind the elders to take medication, emphasizing which medication and in what quantity they should take at a certain time. Also, the elders, but also caregivers would receive notifications about the date when it is necessary to visit a doctor to issue a new prescription for a particular medication. Since elders often have impaired vision or hearing, students are developing a solution in a way that will provide additional light notifications or device vibrations when receiving notifications. Of course, students are also working on the ability to adjust the size of the text on the screen. As the elders, despite their health condition, often prefer to live alone, their caregivers often worry about whether everything is fine with their loved ones. Therefore, the idea is that Silver Care allows periodic measurement of the elderly person’s heart rate and detects a potential drop with the help of a smartwatch.

This students’ project represents a good example of cloud solution development and its potential for developing business based on it. Since the DIHUB project aims to stimulate the collaboration between students, education providers and businesses, development of the Silver Care solution is a good example of such project. It would benefit many elders and caregivers to have a helpful solution like this for maintaining everyday tasks and caring for older family members.