The permanence in their usual abode by individuals who has been affected by accidents and as a consequence undergo a permanent disability limiting their physical ability, or enabled and old people permanence, involves two requirements: - The primary and basic individual need to live in a familiar environment fitting one's own particular physical conditions: a safe and comfortable environment, that allows the largest autonomy and relationship; - The strictly hospital health assistance unload. Elements, common to all patients, are the risk they face when they get back to previous roles and practices. It's important to detect those risks, revise and optimize the daily environment, meaning these steps as a progress along the rehabilitation process. The Hospital Company E. Morelli  of Sondalo, along with some Italian and European bodies and companies, has started off a plan named support tools, integrated by telematic systems and services, aimed to plan and manage assigned to enabled and old persons housing . This project has obtained the EEC financial support within the telematic applications development program, of community concern.

1. To whom it's aimed. The involved users who will benefit from the FACILE plan are: - First, final users - Researchers and experts - Planners - New houses constructors and installers - Finally, the assistants.

2. Plan Targets The targets of the FACILE plan is double:

1- Determination of the integrated planning support tools (architectonic; lay-out: furniture and space equipment; traditional installations: light, heating, conditioning; special installations: safety, communication systems, control systems, etc.) to realize or to restructure the house space (residence).
These tools are: - an international catalogue of home environment systems (technologies, Domotics type automatism, ...) fitting the functions for: safety, comfort, energy management, communication - information, external services integration (for example services to persons etc.), so to allow individual autonomy and to support the permanence at home for old and disabled people; - a guide /manual as a criteria and methodologies system for planning or requalifying home environment for old and disabled people. Such tools must be organized, even partially, (for example only the catalogue), as a database displaying information about: provisions, dimensioning, traditional installations, special installations, etc.

2. The plan foresees and important testing phase according to the following steps:

- planning of the before discharging residences, employing the support tools methodologically stated by the same research (catalogue of the integrated systems and planning guide) and - the realisation of prototypes of before discharging residences (Tab.2) for enabled and old persons who had gone through a treatment period inside a rehabilitation skilled hospital structure. Such before discharge residences do not perform only the features of an intelligent house, since they are equipped with all the info-telematic devices and automation features, which are in the scientific language the requirements so it can be talked about intelligent house, but it will be employed special and quality materials and equipment, settling them into housing solutions. The before discharging residences, placed within the surrounds of hospitals (also rehabilitation skilled), would be a laboratory for testing the home environment. At the end of the stay in hospital, it will be offered to users to stay in these before discharging residences for a varying period according to cases (nearby 10-15 days) with one or more relatives. So, during this period, the user will have the possibility to life test, with the help of relatives and skilled assistants, the different automated systems and furniture present in the residences, with the purpose to regain possession of the home environment and to evaluate dimensions, materials, technologies and solutions. The users may access the database information at the end of the stay and this way, starting off from their own experience, having references and exact indications to realize their own home environment all over again or to restructure. For the users community (enabled and old people) there will be the possibility to have a full picture of the opportunities given by dimensioning, technologies and solutions to build a comfortable home environment, safe and allowing autonomy. The prototype (testing laboratory ) will offer the opportunity to verify from live the advantage coming from the employ of some systems and solutions. This way, the users and their relatives will build themselves an acknowledgement, tested on their own needs, in terms of their own habitat settlement and technological equipment. Being possible deriving information from the database, any user will be able to state priorities and targets of the possible works to realize and restructure his own home environment.

3. Features of the plan

The application to be realized, that is the housing prototypes (testing laboratories ) for enabled and old people who had gone through a treatment period inside a rehabilitation skilled hospital structure, is a home environment : an intelligent house. A intelligent house/space not only for it's equipped with the info-telematic and automated installations, which are in the scientific language the requirements so it can be talked about intelligent home , but also for it will be employed special and quality materials and equipment, settling them into housing solutions. The application foresees a special attention in employing materials, equipment and technologies and in displaying optimal solutions by the point of view of the realization required working times and cost performance. These aspects (required working time to realize some solutions and cost performance) are very important because often enabled and old people do not realize restructuring works in their own houses for the discomforts (long working time) and for expenditures they involve. The prototypes that are meant to realize will instead be featured by offering reference extremely easy to realize models, the space performance they can determine and low costs. So are preferred materials as wood, mainly for the internal partition and equipment realization. Indeed, wood, as regard to other construction materials, as well as traditional and efficient, allows to optimize the house internal space. Concerning the project aspect related to intelligence, first of all it is to notice that the Home Automation technology in Europe has spread very few and prevailing in the service building under the form of Computer Integrated Building. Concerning instead the home residence, by now the realizations are still few and mainly of testing nature or in some cases in high level houses. The reasons of this stalemate in the Home automation technology spreading are several: - Scarce information and cultural training about this matter, starting from school and university level; - Weak structure and lack of training of installers; - Lack of an adequate distribution system; - Home Automation system development using interfaces still too sophisticated and complex for the mass of users; - Technologic solutions development not efficiently fitting the real users' requirements; - The commercial aggressiveness of the great informatic firms not adequately supported by users' services structure has given rise to a certain mistrust toward electronic technologies; - It is to add the ever faster development of the technology, continuously changing products and so turning to obsolete equipment, purchased only one or two years before: this fact concurs to make users (few informed and few cultured) sceptic and mistrustful toward an ever changing market. Notwithstanding, nowadays the Home Automation technology offers systems and products that are well -established, reliable and low cost. So the matter is the employ these technologies in a proper and adequate way fitting the real requirements of users on the basis of a planning to fit the same users' requirements. So in the current context it is allowed to think that the aspects of the 'target planning' must get over the purely abstract performance of the technology and the individualization of social significant needs are the two turning points for a social profitable spread of the Home Automation technology. In the European context it seems that the enabled and old persons are the ideal subjects, performing the needs and the social importance requirements, who can employ profitably the Home Automation technology, target oriented.

4. Plan duration : 24 months.

5. Plan Partners

- Istituto Cooperativo per l'Innovazione e il trasferimento tecnologico (Innovation And Technological Transfer Co-operative Institute) - Italy ;
- Dipartimento di Disegno Industriale e Tecnologia dell'Architettura-Politecnico di Milano (Industrial Design And Architectural Technology Department - Politecnico of Milan - Italy);
- Consorzio Nazionale Servizi (Services National Consortium - Italy ;
- Consorzio Cooperative Costruzioni (Building Co-operatives Consortium);
- Hospital Company E. Morelli-Sondalo-Italy;
- ITALDATA - Italy
- Centre Scientifique et Tecnique de la Construction - Belgian Centre for Domotics and Immotics - Belgium;
- Danderyds Sjukhus - Sweden;
- Kungliga Tekniska Hogskolan - Royal Institute of Technology - Sweden.

Piergiorgio Spaggiari Direttore Generale Azienda Ospedaliera "Eugenio Morelli" - Sondalo (SO)

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