Author:

Abstract:

In Belgium (and many other European countries), the avarage age of individuals is increasing significantly. Many governmental as well as commercial initiatives aim at supporting elderly people in daily tasks. Examples are cooking services, cleaning services and health related services (such as washing, pedicure . . . ). However, society can no longer sustain the huge costs of these services. Moreover, some tasks can easily be performed by relatives (i.e. people in the social network around a person that needs assistance). For instance, a neighbour can cook frequently or a daughter can clean the house. Although relatives can reduce the increasing work load and costs, many elderly people are reluctant to rely on their social network for two main reasons. First, unfair task allocations may put a burden on certain relatives. Second, the execution of certain tasks (such as meal services) must be guaranteed daily. Many relatives may in fact be willing to other health care support to patients although they do not want to give a commitment to other it daily and for a long period. A fair digital platform for building and maintaining a social network around elderly persons may overcome these barriers. Sites, such as LinkedIn[4], FaceBook[3] and Twitter[7], show that maintaining social networks is nowadays an important part of people's activities in the virtual world of the internet. Contacts with friends and relatives on social network sites are seen as easier to maintain, but equally relevant, as real-life contacts. Our platform is inspired by the ease-of-use and potential of social network sites. Clearly, the requirements for our platform differ greatly from those of social network sites. For instance, our platform requires the support of more advanced services than only generic communication services, and we need to devote even more attention to advanced security and privacy issues[5][6]. These requirements are driven by the high sensitivity of data that must often be released to/by caregivers.