| Sumario: | Purpose The population aging has elevated social costs for healthcare and caregiving services, resulting in considerable public attention to care services to assist older adults in maintaining independence and quality of life for as long as possible.1 The prompt provision of services responded to crises for one-person households can contribute to improve their overall quality of life; such that technology that offers convenient, and safe environments becomes crucial.2 The current study aimed to provide safety and care services based on life data and IoT technologies for older adults living alone and to evaluate effectiveness of safety and care services using Living Lab. Method This was a non-randomized pretest-posttest control group study that included adults who are 50 years or older and living alone. Participants were comprised of three groups according to whether participants receive services based on IoT sensors and/or telephone monitoring systems installed at home to serve as a Living Lab. A Living Lab is a user-centered, open-innovation system, operating in participants' house, integrating concurrent research and innovation processes.3 In the Living Lab, IoT sensors have been tested based on monitoring devices such as motion detection, temperature, or humidity for senior safety. SKT safety and care services using communication data has been utilized to test the effects of telephone monitoring systems. With IoT sensors and/or telephone monitoring systems, all groups also received safety care services from coordinators by regular visits and telephone calls during the three months. All participants completed pre-test and post-test measures that assessed depression, suicidal thoughts, comfortable living, and quality of life. Results and Discussion A total of 63 older adults participated, with the Group 1 of 22 people providing IoT sensor with coordinators' visits, the Group 2 of 22 people providing services through IoT sensor combined with telephone monitoring systems and coordinators' visits, and Group 3 of 19 through coordinators' visits only. There were no significant differences in demographic characteristics among three groups. The results for depression and suicidal thoughts revealed a statistically significant change regardless of assigned group. The findings also indicated statistically significant increases in the scores of residential satisfaction and comfortable living for the Group 2 specifically. The current study suggests that safety and care services accompanying with coordinators may help perceive the importance of responses to crises and self-care for older adults living alone. Furthermore, enhancing our understanding of the phenomenon of older adults living alone, as well as institutional and environmental changes can help to provide useful methods to increase the quality of life for older adults on the 4th industrial revolution era.
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