Concluding Remarks

Abstract

Enhancing the human experiences for the elderly and individuals living with dementia or some sensory impairment, as well as for their caregivers can be considered as the drivers of the assistive technology, including the IoT-based assistive devices and smart environments. The links between the views on disability and age on the design, development, and evaluation of AT are also well-established. Other parts of this book have examined the sensing, actuation, intelligence, and the digital revolutions that are behind advanced AT, the IoT, smart environments, and their deployment scenarios for assisting the elderly and the persons living with dementia or disability. The challenges in moving forward, some of the criteria relevant to the usefulness of AT, as well as their performance requirements in the contexts of various regulatory, social, and interactivity frameworks, have also been explored. This chapter summarizes these points and concludes this work, arguing the case for the need of taking a combinatory and holistic approach for the developments of AT, including assistive IoT and smart environments.