Home / Consument / Blog / European Consortium Ella4Life helps the elderly to live at home longer

European Consortium Ella4Life helps the elderly to live at home longer

Companies, universities and health care facilities in the Netherlands, Poland, Roemenia and Switzerland are working together for the next three years in a European AAL Programma of 1.9 milion euros: Ella4Life. Two validated medical devices, Anne and Emma, will be combined to the smart assistent Ella in order to help the elderly life at home independently.

Ella4Life is a European cooperation of three years. The basis will be formed by virtual assistent “Anne” of the company Virtask and “Emma”, the patient-health professional communication platform for chronically ill patients of Medicine Men. Both “sisters” will communicatie with each other and make use of each other’s sensors, user interaction and knowledge of the user. “Anne” and “emma” will be supported by smart sensor technology developed by Gdańsk University of Technology. The goal is to support the elderly in the phase of decreasing physical and cognitive functions, which allows them to live at home with a good quality of life.

The project falls within the Ambient Assisted Living program of the EU. In the Netherlands the activities are accompanied by ZonMW.

Next to foreign partners like the Ana Aslan International Foundation (Roemenia) and the Swiss iHomeLab of the university of Luzern, two Dutch partners are also added to the program: Livelife provides participants of a Dutch fieldlab and Zilveren Kruis, represented by Jeroen Kemperman, helps with the development of revenue models.

Anne is a virtual assistent for the elderly and people with physical or mental limitations. Anne can be used with starting dementia, loneliness and/or depression, can help avoid malnutrition and dehydration and can make sure that falling accidents of elderly are noticed sooner. Anne is developed by Virtask and has been succesfully used in various programmes. Annemarie Johannes, Virtask: “At Anne4Care we aim for comfort! The intergration of 3 masterful innovations will lead to a more comfortable technological support for the aging person in Europe.”

Emma is a class I CE certified medical device that has been successfully used with patients with chronical illnesses and/or with COPD. Emma support the user with his/her medication use, to exercise more and to lose weight, to measure and monitor blood pressure and to register health data, such as sleep, atriumfibrillation and heartbeat. Oscar van Dijk, CEO of Medicine Men: “The stap from an app or screen to a speaking, understanding, multilingual avatar makes our Emma platform even more consumer friendly and approachable for a larger group of people, especially the elderly.”

Ella4Life supports elderly at home on a tablet and on the road with a smartphone and/or smartwatch. Users will be more self-sufficient and less dependable of health professionals, which will lead in cost reduction and a higher effectivity of the intervention. Dennis Kleinbussink, project leader Ella4Life: “We are convinced that the combination of all these great systems in Ella4Life will improve the quality of life of both end users and caretakers.”

Consortium Partners:

  • Virtask B.V. (The Netherlands)
  • Medicine Men B.V. (The Netherlands)
  • iHomeLab van de University of Applied Sciences and Arts van Luzern (Switzerland )
  • Zilveren Kruis (The Netherlands)
  • Livelife B.V. ( The Netherlands)
  • Gdańsk University of Technology (Poland)
  • Muflon Sp. z o.o. (Poland)
  • Ana Aslan International Foundation (Romania)
  • Vicino Luzern (Switzerland)
ISO 27001NEN 7510CE