Page 238 - Handbook of Electronic Assistive Technology

Chapter 8 • Assisted Living 227

team at Stirling Dementia Development Services and it incorporated relevant technology,
similar in configuration to the AID house. Glasgow City Council wanted the flat to be able
to accommodate a wider range of disabilities and after its initial use by a dementia suf-
ferer, it was used by a young adult with acquired brain injury (ABI). It is not known what
proportion of the technology continued to be used but the system remained operational
and the property was then managed by Glasgow Housing Association (Brownsell and
Bradley, 2003).
Angus Community Care Charitable Trust (ACCCT) became active in the use of smart
house systems, following a visit to the CUSTODIAN (Conceptualisation for User involve-
ment in Specification and Tools Offering the efficient Delivery of system Integration
Around home Networks) demonstrator in Dundee. ACCCT led a multi-agency project at
Lilybank, Forfar, for people with learning disabilities and challenging behaviour. It con-
sisted of three properties: one residential home for four people and two units each provid-
ing 10 supported living accommodations. The system infrastructure was based on IHC
(LonWorks), and incorporated a full array of sensors (door and window alerts, flood detec-
tion and presence detection) and actuators (access, lights, appliances and water). Staff
could set alerts, which were received/acknowledged via pagers. The care and maintenance
of the building was taken over by Angus Council, who decided not to purchase a specialist
maintenance contract for the system, so after the initial 12 months of technical support,
the system fell into disuse over a relatively short timescale.

The York Smart Flat

The York Smart Flat was implemented at a bungalow in York. This system consisted of an
Echelon powerline-based system, and was installed over the same timeframe as the AID
house, again incorporating a range of sensors (smoke, light, heat) and actuators (lights,
doors, windows, heating, audio feedback). Phillips lighting controllers were used in com-
bination with proprietary Zytron multisensors and the authors reported some issues
regarding ‘interoperability between different, but supposedly compatible, components’
(Gann et al., 1999). Additionally, the system integrators were required to design their own
module that incorporated both input and output nodes within a modified ceiling rose.
Following the initial evaluation the facility was never used for real-life care support, and
was decommissioned in 2000. This project led directly to the commissioning of the Wigton
smart home project.

Wigton Smart Home

Cumbria Social Services took the decision to explore the use of smart home technology,
and following a visit to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation project in York, approached Home
Housing Association to retrofit two installations into social housing bungalows in Wigton.
Only one of the properties was actually implemented due to unspecified difficulties with
the project. The bungalow, which was originally intended for the use of older people, was
based on IHC (Echelon) infrastructure incorporating sensors (flood, bath temperature and