An advanced look at smart technology to promote the independence of the elderly and disabled Ongoing research and advancements in technology are essential for the continuing independence of elderly and disabled persons. The Engineering Handbook of Smart Technology for Aging, Disability, and Independence provides a thorough analysis of these technologies and the needs of the elderly and disabled, including a breakdown of demographics, government spending, growth rate, and much more. Each chapter is written by an expert in his or her respective field, and gives readers unparalleled insight into the research and developments in a multitude of important areas, including: User-need analyses, classifications, and policies Assistive devices and systems for people with motor disabilities Assistive devices and systems for people with visual and hearing impairments Human-machine interaction and virtual reality Assistive robotics Technology for user mobility and object manipulation Smart homes as assistant environments A discussion of emerging standards and guidelines to build accessible devices, tools, and environments This book is an indispensable resource for researchers and professionals in computer science, rehabilitation science, and clinical engineering. It also serves as a valuable textbook for graduate students in the aforementioned fields.

Successful transition from school to adult life has always been difficult for people with disabilities, especially in the area of employment. The vast majority of people with disabilities are either unemployed or underemployed with low wages and few benefits, and many governments are struggling to find a way of providing employment and benefits to people with disabilities without creating disincentives to work. This book provides strategies and ideas for improving the lives of people with disabilities, exploring new ways of enabling a successful transition to an integrated adult working life by providing effective instruction and support. Following an introduction which outlines the importance of transition services and meaningful outcomes, topics covered in the remaining chapters include: Person Centered Transition Planning; Enhancing Competence and Independence; Employment Assessment and Career Development; Collaboration between Agencies for a Seamless Transition; Independent Living and Supported Living; and Community Functioning Skills. The book will be of interest to all those who work with transition age students as well as those who work with adults with disabilities and want to enable them to have the best life possible. To paraphrase Helen Keller "people with disabilities not only need to be given lives, they need to be given lives worth living."

We live in a world with an abundance of technologies and the technologies are developing and improving rapidly. Technologies are transforming our lifestyles, social interactions, and workplaces. Nearly everyone in the developed nations possesses multiple electronic gadgets (cell phones, tablets, personal computers, laptops, digital notebooks, etc.). Daily use of technology has evolved. Recent advances in the field of technology have led to the emergence of innovative solutions known as smart technologies. A technology is considered smart if it performs a task that an intelligent person can do. A smart or intelligent technology is a self-operative and corrective system that requires little or no human intervention. Smart technologies can be understood as a generalization of the concept of smart structures and the use of digital and communications technologies. They have given us new, powerful tools to work. Application of such technologies can transform the conventional cities into smart cities, conventional home into smart home, conventional farming into smart farming, etc. Today, we are in an era where everything is expected to be smart. Common examples include smart cities, smart factory, smart agriculture, smart farming, smart healthcare, smart university, smart medication, smart water, smart food, smart materials, smart devices, smart phones, smart grid, smart energy, smart homes, smart buildings, smart metering, smart appliances, smart equipment, smart heating controls, smart lighting systems, smart watch, smart economy, smart environment, smart grids, smart transportation, smart mobility, smart manufacturing, smart living, smart environment, smart people, etc. These technologies will ensure equity, fairness, and realize a better quality of life. The combined autonomy and ambience of smart technologies simultaneously provides the conduit through which our choices are affected. These smart technologies go hand-in-hand with a new technology called the Internet of things (IoT).

This publication presents articles on Aging-in-Place, Assistive Technology, Monitoring and Telehealth, Transportation and Mobility, and Design. The section on assistive technology (AT) represents arguably the most mature and generic aspect of technology and aging; except that AT can hardly be regarded really as a specific discipline any longer. Assistive devices and systems command an expansive gamut of technological and engineering specialties, drawing upon mechanical engineering and industrial design at one end of the field and cybernetic systems engineering and brain-computer user interfaces at the other. The largest section in the book, on monitoring and telehealth, reveals novel applications of advanced pattern recognition techniques, some of which have, up to now, found roles primarily in the military, process engineering, and financial sectors. Transportation and mobility still represents by far the largest and most commercially lucrative market segment of technology for seniors. There is however a clear trend towards synthesis of information and communication technologies (ICT) and mobility technologies, which is embodied in the latest developments of automatic collision avoidance and full or semi-autonomous navigation functions in powered mobility devices. The last section is dedicated to design issues. It is proposed that designing for the special needs market before making a design as inclusive as possible to the mainstream market is a viable alternative to the currently accepted notion of inclusive design, provided that aesthetics are appropriately addressed. To conclude, we see a social shift from institutional to home-based care, in which information communication technology based solutions now afford the possibility of aging-in-place for the many thousands of people having mild to moderate cognitive impairment.

The two LNCS volume set 9754-9755 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second International Conference on Human Aspects of IT for the Aged Population, ITAP 2016, held as part of the 18th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2016, held in Toronto, ON, Canada, in July 2016, jointly with 14 other thematically conferences. The total of 1287 papers and 186 poster papers presented at the HCII 2016 conferences were carefully reviewed and selected from 4354 submissions. LNCS 9754, Design for Aging (Part I), addresses the following major topics: designing for and with the elderly; technology use and acceptance by older users; psychological and cognitive aspects of interaction and aging; mobile and wearable technologies for the elderly. LNCS 9755, Healthy and Active Aging (Part II), addresses these major topics: smart and assistive environments; aging and social media; aging, learning, training and games; and aging, mobility and driving.

Part of the Oxford Textbooks in Clinical Neurology series, this textbook will provide the reader with an understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of neurorehabilitation, as well as a clear idea about how (and why) to approach treatment decisions in individual patients.

A collaboration between leading scientists, practitioners, and researchers at Carnegie-Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh, this book is a comprehensive resource describing Quality of Life technologies and their development, evaluation, adoption, and commercialization. It takes an interdisciplinary team approach to the process of tec