Smart home for elderly care: development and challenges in China
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Smart home for elderly care: development and challenges in China Quan Zhang1, Meiyu Li2 and Yijin Wu3*
Abstract Background: China’s smart home for elderly care emerged in 2008, and had went through four developmental stages which consists of seed stage, start-up stage, development stage and popularization stage. Main text: The status quo and development of smart home for elderly care in China is reviewed, and suggestions are provided on how to further develop China’s smart home for elderly care. The focus of China’s policies on smart home for elderly care were different during those four developmental stages. Compared with Western countries, China’s smart home for elderly care is a policy-driven product rather than technology-driven or demand-driven one. In addition, it is quasi-public goods rather than private goods. These unique characteristics of China’s smart home for elderly care not only become the driving force of its rapid development, but also bring many challenges to its development, such as the insufficient demand, the disorderly development, and the waste of public and private resources. Conclusions: Although great progress has been made in China’s smart home care, much efforts are still needed to further advance its development. The technical standards for the elderly care services should be formulated as soon as possible and the existing public and private smart home for elderly care platforms should be combined. Enterprises involved in smart home care services should be encouraged to develop new technologies to reduce the cost of products and services provided by smart home for elderly care. Keywords: Smart home, Elderly care, China
Background After the second world war, the increasing ageing population has brought huge pressure on the economic and social life of all countries [1]. The demographic structure of the world will change significantly in the next 40 years, which requires each country to shift from the welfare model to individual model. In this sense, family will become the main place for caring the elderly [2]. In addition, modern medicine brings about an increase in life expectancy, which leads to an increasing demand for the elderly care services [3]. Due to social transformation * Correspondence: [email protected] 3 School of Translation Studies/Center for Medical Humanities in the Developing World, Qufu Normal University, No. 80, Yantai Road, Donggang District, Rizhao 287600, Shandong, PR China Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
and job mobility, it is increasingly difficult for the elderly to rely on their family members to take care of them. In addition, a limited number of nursing staff in China cannot meet the rising demand for the elderly care services. Therefore, how to meet the demands of home-based elderly people for medical care and nursing services has become a key issue for the development of the elderly care services in the world. In recent years, the fourth scientific and technological revolution characterized b
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