Monitoring and Reducing Sedentary Behavior in the Elderly with the Aid of Human Digital Memories

A healthy lifestyle has the ability not only to give you more energy and help you look and feel better, but it also has the ability to help you live longer and prevent disease, such as obesity and pressure ulcers. This is particularly important for the elderly population, as a healthier lifestyle would enable independent living to occur for a longer period of time. However, providing a direct link between increasing physical activity and positive health outcomes is a problem. The effect of leading an increasing sedentary lifestyle is also not evident straightaway. Effects of this behavior often occur over years and decades, as opposed to days or months. Therefore, there is very little willingness to change, if instant results are not seen. There is a need to provide a mechanism that is able to monitor an individual and provide a visual indication of his or her behavior. It is envisioned that the area of human digital memories is capable of providing such a system. This article explores how sedentary behavior and journey information can be collected, from different environments, so that an illustration of a user's habits can be seen and changes can occur. A successful prototype has also been developed that evaluates the applicability of the approach. Copyright © 2013, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. 2013