Smart-Living at Dutch Technology Week

This week, for the third year in a row, Cooperation Smarter Living is participating in the Dutch Technology Week. Over a period of three days, ten different care initiatives can be seen in the Smarter Living House. The aim is to allow visitors to experience e-health solutions for themselves and to keep them up to date with the latest innovations in the field of healthcare.

As in the previous two years, the Smarter Living House will introduce the residents in and around Eindhoven to the technological possibilities for staying at home longer and more independently and for improving care and vitality for both young and old. You can think of both mental and physical support.

One of those concepts is Welshop, developed by GGz Eindhoven. This is an online environment where people can develop themselves mentally with the help of a coach. They can purchase a course of their choice, in which they are in contact with a personal instructor with whom they have contact via app, mail and telephone.

There are possibilities to schedule meetings, but most of the treatment takes place online. It is easily accessible, which means that people are more likely to seek this help. ”We notice that both young and old use the concept. Elderly people find it easy not to have to leave the house and young people feel at home in an online environment”, says Ellen Renders, one of the online coaches.

Another initiative that was allowed to spread its idea in the Smarter Life House was the company Commap. They offer their customers all kinds of communication aids, especially if they are no longer able to speak properly due to a physical and/or cognitive handicap. By using a tool, they can express themselves better and indicate their wishes and needs. This is useful for people with, for example, ALS, MS, Parkinson’s disease and a spinal cord injury.

In the Smarter Living House, they introduced people to the ‘EyeComm Eye Control’ initiative, which allows you to replace communicating with speech and use your eyes to control the computer. It is intended for people who are very limited in their motion but who still have good eye function. The computer detects the pupils and the eyes serve as a cursor on the screen.

An organisation that also attracted a lot of attention during the first day of the Smarter Living House 2018 is the House of Tomorrow, an initiative of the Care Innovation Center. They introduce people with new healthcare equipment and go to various fairs and events to discuss the possibilities with potential patients. Both an elevated toilet and a senior telephone for seniors and personal alarm are part of this and allow people to live a long independent life. “We always say, as long as people’s eyebrows still go up when you tell them about certain new products, there’s innovation”, says the representative of the House of Tomorrow. “The House of Tomorrow plays an important role in the distribution of knowledge about new possibilities. In our opinion, too little attention is paid to this in the everyday life.”

The Smarter Life House is an initiative of the Cooperation Smarter Living 2020 in collaboration with Rabobank. “The Smarter Living House really does come to people’s homes and, compared to the other events on Dutch Technology Week, is quite small. It is a part of a technology that is much more accessible to people, with which we try to communicate the social value of technology and social innovation,” says Charel Klerkx, communication advisor of the Cooperation Smarter Living.