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A Systematic Review of Proposals for the Social Integration of Elderly People Using Ambient Intelligence and Social Networking Sites

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Abstract

Providing solutions to current issues associated with an aging population has become a major challenge for the scientific community. In late adulthood, social isolation issues are the most frequent and the most threatening for the independent living and cognitive health of elderly adults. In this context, ambient intelligence (AmI) and social networking sites (SNSs) can promote independent living and social integration, improve their health, reduce the chances for developing cognitive decline, and ultimately prevent earlier death. The aim of this paper was to review the literature about how AmI and SNS technologies have been applied in the social integration of elderly adults. Therefore, a systematic review was conducted, which analyzed and classified computational approaches to address the issues of social isolation and social integration of elderly adults. This study revealed a wide variety of research works that are based on AmI and SNS technologies to keep older adults socially active. The paper also identifies the main technological resources and strategies to encourage social integration in this segment of the population. We concluded that this research field is still emerging and there is room for significant contributions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, CENIDET, Interior Internado Palmira S/N, Palmira, Cuernavaca, Mexico

    Wilfrido Campos, Alicia Martinez, Wendy Sanchez, Noé Alejandro Castro-Sánchez & Dante Mujica

  2. INFOTEC, San Fernando 37, Toriello Guerra, Distrito Federal, Mexico

    Hugo Estrada

  3. Technological Institute of Chilpancingo, Av. José Francisco Ruiz Massieu, 5, Fracc. Villa Moderna, Chilpancingo, Guerrero, Mexico

    Wilfrido Campos

  4. Academic Unit of Engineering, Autonomous University of Guerrero, Chilpancingo, Guerrero, Mexico

    Wilfrido Campos

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  1. Wilfrido Campos
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Correspondence to Wilfrido Campos.

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Wilfrido Campos, Alicia Martinez, Wendy Sanchez, Hugo Estrada, Noé Alejandro Castro-Sánchez, and Dante Mujica declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2008 (5). Additional informed consent was obtained from all patients for which identifying information is included in this article.

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Campos, W., Martinez, A., Sanchez, W. et al. A Systematic Review of Proposals for the Social Integration of Elderly People Using Ambient Intelligence and Social Networking Sites. Cogn Comput 8, 529–542 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12559-016-9382-z

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