Needs assessment for Active and Assisted Living-concepts among the elderly

The European population is becoming older, due to many factors including healthcare improve-ments, medical improvements, increase in life expectancy and reduction of birth rate. At the same time, the profile of the elderly is changing. Therefore it is necessary to identify care and social needs of the older population in order to make appropriate strategic plans that will promote health and extend independency and quality of life. Active and Assisted Living-tech-nologies (AAL-technologies) provide novel opportunities for meeting this needs.
Assessments of need often focus on a single parameter. With the usage of the “AAL-Welten-Model” several relevant aspects of life, living and environment are included. This novel needs assessment approach includes different parameter of daily activities and several living charac-teristics of the elderly population. With this approach good transferability of results is ensured into the different AAL categories. The most important benefit of the model is that the elderly population and their needs take the centre stage, which ensures hands-on AAL interventions.