A framework for assistive robotics technology in personalised healthcare (ASSISTANT)

The socioeconomic effects of morbidity and disability are relevant for the Norwegian society. In this light, there is a need for technologies that support the provision of healthcare services, the execution of activities of daily living (ADL) for elderly and disabled persons, rehabilitation, and personalised health promotion, including training to keep and increase physical fitness across the entire cycle of life. The main project will design, prototype and verify a framework of policies, business models and technological tools (operating system, wearables, cobots) for assistive health technology (AHT), personalised rehabilitation and physiotherapy. The proposed framework requires cross-disciplinarity and cross-sectoral involvement with the aim of increasing the level of independence of citizens, while keeping high quality of welfare schemes, and enabling personalised services. The proposed framework is focused on the application of cobots, haptics, tele-rehabilitation, and assistive tools. This will allow practitioners to take on less work and keep costs under control while still enhancing patients’ activities of daily living (ADL). To accomplish this, the pre-project will incorporate cross-disciplinary expertise from all concerned actors, including (a) patients (patients, next of kin), (b) practitioners (clinicians, non-clinicians, health care facilities and clinical students), (c) third parties (controllers, technologists, administrators, ethics/legal/safety professionals) and (d) technology vendors. The pre-project is expected to produce preliminary research and derivation of ideas for the solution, overall idea formulation and assessment, and a business strategy based on this cross-disciplinary experience. These expected outputs will lead to an application for a main project.