Living Lab Infrastructures for Rehabilitation

AUTH Centrifuge Rehabilitation Living Lab is the only centrifuge within the EU territory used for medical and research purposes other than the space or the military sector. The ‘GRACER1 – Joan Vernikos’ short-arm human centrifuge lab was initiated on October 2019 as the joint action of the a) Laboratory of Medical Physics, Medical School, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, b) Greek AeroSpace Medical Association – Space Research (GASMA-SR) and c) the “EUROMEDICA-AROGI” private rehabilitation centre.

Mobilab & Care’s MOTION lab is a research infrastructure that allows for extensive motion and gait analyses within several domains such as sports, ergonomics, orthopaedics and rehabilitation, as well as in clinical and pathological research. The infrastructure has a line-up for motion and gait analysis, in which subjects can be filmed in high speed by 4 cameras from different angles. The lab also allows for dynamic 3D-scanning of the foot and optical measurement of the human back (spine included) through the Diers Formetric 4D to both healthy subjects and patients.

GAIA and Ocean Living Lab for Rehabilitation provide real spaces in the Basque Coast for testing and innovating on technologies and services for the physical and mental improvement of citizens through the practice of sports and use of new technologies. We count on different physical sceneries and technology platforms to test and validate new projects for mental and physical rehabilitation, offering access and collaboration with a wide spectrum of users and stakeholders.

INTRAS Rehabilitation Living Lab provides direct access to Care Centers and a Memory Clinic, where developed prototypes are directly implemented and tested in the rehabilitation centres. The living lab offers ecologically valid environments for the LL activity and co-creation activities with older adults, caregivers and care professionals, products such as Gradior Cognitive (commercialized), Gradior Active, Gradior Multi-sensory, and A City of Memories used in INTRAS rehabilitation centers, and external pilot care centers.

Laurea Simulated Hospital is located inside Laurea University and utilises the newest wireless simulator technology for teaching patient care and multidisciplinary research. The living lab includes the wireless patient simulator, as well as the modelling and simulation laboratory used for studying and developing the processes and service chains of private and public services. The environment includes a clinic, a shock room, an intensive care unit and a ward. Monitoring and control rooms are also available for the instructors along with the debriefing room, where the instructors have an opportunity to follow the simulation through pre-recorded videos.

Living Lab infrastructures for Transitions in Care

AUTH Health Care Transition Living Lab is located inside an ecologically valid hospital, especially for studying transitions. This infrastructure consists of two physical rooms that are separated with walls and doors. One room is equipped with furniture and home appliances to resemble a kitchen and living room and the other is a bedroom environment. The whole infrastructure is equipped with high resolution monitoring ICT tools including Kinect 3 sensors, RGB cameras, simple proximity sensors and IoT appliances.

INTRAS VR/AR and Snoezelen Room follows a multi-sensorial stimulation approach (vision, hearing, smell) as virtual therapeutic environments for intensive and ecological rehabilitation, using realistic environments including VR/AR. The living lab is conceived as an extended space with respect to the healthcare environment itself, oriented towards cognitive stimulation and wellbeing promotion, whereas it offers the possibility of carrying out series of cognitive activities while taking a walk through a city, visiting a museum, a supermarket or a park.

Thomas More Experience lab is a flexible simulated living and care environment for single elderly people (both healthy subjects and patients, including rehabilitants) which allows for research and testing of technology in a controlled environment. It is ideal to test settings before they are launched at a residential setting. The experience lab has an equipped living room, kitchen and bedroom with sensors to monitor behaviour and self-reliance in a residential setting.

UPM-LifeSTech- The Smart House Living Lab is part of the Madrid Region Laboratories Network with registry number 367 and part of the Accessible Domotics Showrooms Network. The Smart House Living Lab is a real intelligent house, fully equipped with the usual services of a conventional house where different ICT and IoT technologies (sensors and actuators) are distributed extensively in the house technical areas such as ceilings and walls, remaining invisible to users. There is also a specific room with a virtual reality infrastructure that allows virtual training and rapid prototyping of new services, and simulation of different scenarios.

McGill – CRIR rehabilitation Living Lab research labs are located in clinical settings that foster, exchange between researchers, health care professionals, patients, family and other caregivers. Community Living Labs are located in an urban shopping mall (RehabMaLL) and at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. The infrastructure includes lab space of ~ 15,000sq ft that house virtual reality research environments, state of technology, motion caption cameras, haptic devices, wearable sensors, serious game environment and training simulators. It also includes testing and student spaces, meeting rooms break out spaces, integrated within the clinical settings. Living Labs within the community benefit from meeting and testing rooms, debriefing spaces and storage for equipment, when necessary. The Living Labs will also benefit from shared personnel, coordinator, engineers, IT specialists and research assistants.

Living Lab infrastructures for Smart Environments

AUTH Living Environment Simulation is located inside the Medical School, allowing access to strong collaboration, expertise and continuous communication with medical staff. A living room environment and a kitchen environment is set up in the same physical space. The AHA LL is equipped with home appliances and furniture so as to better resemble an older adult’s home.

GAIA Smart Spaces, in collaboration with the municipality of Gernika – Lumo, has a unique focus on sport spaces. GAIA counts on with smart devices to monitor the health and wellbeing of users and in collaboration with Gernika-Lumo municipality will taste and validate Smart methodologies, products and services together with their citizens for the redesigning of public spaces, giving new uses to infrastructures and sport spaces and adapting them to new needs: sports grounds, public gyms, etc.

INTRAS MIND lab for AHA & Independent Living is a space for open innovation, specialized in co-design for people suffering from mental health disorders, older adults and people with disabilities. It holds multifunctional spaces and Lab Rooms for trying technologies, working offices and open innovation spaces, meeting and conference rooms, convivial meeting points and resting spaces. The LL is equipped with IT software and devices for training, rehabilitation, monitoring, daily living assistance and communication technologies.

TheLiCalab Older Adults’ Homes are houses owned by elderly people who are panel members of the Living Lab and live in different conditions (independently, supported by assisted technology and/or by (in)formal carers). LiCalab equips the houses with technologies from SMEs, (external) research groups or external parties to evaluate the technology through real life testing. In this way, technology can be demonstrated in the real life environment of the houses of the panel members.

Nagykovácsi Wellbeing Living Lab- Trebag offers alternative activities for older adults’ well-being (yoga, gardening, tai-chi etc). It has a living room environment combined with a kitchenette and a diner in the same physical space. Next to the hall area there is also a separate smaller room. All rooms are equipped with tables and chairs as well as appliances for sessions with ICT tools, laptops, whiteboards and a projector. The main area is often used for lectures and seminars, but also suitable to host physical activities like yoga or gym for older adults. The garden is connected with the NWLL building by a big terrace suitable for further outdoor activities.

Laurea Activity Living Lab is not connected to a single environment, but the infrastructure is mobile, with up to 400 participants having been tested in a single day. Laurea has various types of mobile technology to test physical capacity and physical activity levels. For example, the Cosmed K5 wearable metabolic system is designed for both laboratory and field performance assessment. The HUR BT4 force platform. which assesses balance performance and the Tanita MC-780 multi-frequency segmental body composition analyzer are both in use in Laurea Activity LL. Muscle functions can be detected by a 16-channel data logger ME6000 (Bittium, Kuopio, Finland) to collect surface electromyography signals. Isometric muscle strength can be evaluated by the HUR Performance recorder and aerobic/anaerobic capacity by Monark test ergometers.

ΑΙΤ Technology Experience Laboratory offers an interdisciplinary experience (design, ergonomy, work and environmental psychology, informatics and engineering). The AIT Technology Experience Lab prepares, sets up and realizes the user-centered investigation and implementation of health-related and assistive technologies. The highly interdisciplinary team provides the facilities and competences to develop and test enhanced forms of contextual user experiences.