AIT and Verband Mühlviertler Alm have successfully finalised the one-year project WEGE2025 - Living and aging at Mühlviertler Alm. The project aimed at assessing the regional potential for widespread use of AAL (Active & Assisted Living) technologies among the resident elderly population.
Rural areas such as Mühlviertler Alm suffer particularly from the demographic change due to the ongoing depopulation of younger people and, at the same time, are confronted with a general decrease in utility infrastructure. Under such conditions, innovative and efficient AAL technologies are considered promising solutions for sustaining an independent living of elderly and impaired people and thereby promoting their overall quality of life.
Since November 2014 the AIT Business Units Research, Technology & Innovation Policy, Technology Experience and Biomedical System as well as Verband Mühlviertler Alm – an association of ten Upper Austrian municipalities – have carried out a comprehensive future-oriented stakeholder process. Some 100 regional stakeholders, including potential users, managed care organisations, service providers, and community representatives explored future needs of an attractive life during old age and assessed by means of scenarios, a roadmap and a vision of the future the potential for implementation of suggested solutions, such as new ideas for technologies and services, in real life.
For the key aspects mobility, comfort & living, social inclusion and health (including telemedicine) the status-quo of the region and requirements for the future were analysed in detail. It became evident that next to a better understanding for the social needs of the elderly and impaired people, there is a particular need for security aspects, such as security in one’s own home and the security of data management.
The whole process was characterised by a huge personal engagement from the participants of the future process which resulted in a broad variety of needs as well as a selection of new ideas.
To promote this spirit of constructive cooperation and the sensibility of the region for AAL, the project team intends to apply for a follow-up project, in which innovative structures and technologies can finally be implemented in the real life.
Project website
18.12.2015