The Living Challenges of Ambient Assisted Living - A Literature Review

Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) is a rapidly evolving research and development area propelled by scarcity of health resources caused by an aging workforce and increase of citizens in need of health care and health assistance on a regular basis. This paper presents a literature review of the current state-of-the-art of AAL. The objective is to point towards methodological actions to be taken into account in AAL research on this basis. Searches were conducted in five research databases. The search identified 86 papers. 10 of these papers were review papers chosen for analysis. The analysis presents an overview of the current status of AAL within the following categories: technology, users, application domains, rationales, successes and challenges of AAL. The paper concludes that the living part, i.e. the everyday practice of people living with Assistive Technology (AT), is the primary challenge to the field due to its complexity of people and practices challenging the technological development and use. This calls for methods that support research carried out in close co-operations with the living environment and facilitate the complexity of stakeholders within the use-domain in a constructive and innovative manner. Living Lab is discussed as a general example on such methods.