This photo provided by Yongin City Office shows a wearable band for elderly care service.
YONGIN, Sept. 24 (Korea Bizwire) — An artificial intelligence (AI)-based elderly care service that a municipal government provided on a non-face-to-face basis turned out to have a positive impact on both the physical and mental health of older people.
The Yongin city government in Gyeonggi province provided the ‘Touch Care Service’ for 111 people among seniors over 65 years of age living alone who were eligible for the at-home elderly support service and the elderly customized care service, over the one year period from July 2020 to June 2021.
The service uses a wearable band and touchpad-type device to sense and analyze the movements of the participants and offers an AI-based guide on waking up, eating and taking medicine to ensure a regular life.
The service contributed to increasing the number of daily walking steps by 900 to 1,773 on average. Thanks to the AI’s recommendation for going out for a walk, the average time spent going out increased by six to 30 minutes.
As the participants established regular life patterns, their nutrition index inched up from 10.64 to 11.79.
The assessment of depression through a health checkup showed that their average depression score fell from 4.8 to 2.2. The satisfaction rate for the quality of life, assessed by the elderly people themselves, also rose from 0.89 to 0.92.
Lina Jang (linajang@koreabizwire.com)
