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About

The aim of the EMA_FRAILTY project is to develop an innovative system that uses smart sensors and Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) to detect early signs of frailty in older adults. By spotting subtle daily changes in health and activity, the project helps ensure that older people receive timely support and personalised care, enabling them to live independently for longer while improving their quality of life and reducing pressure on healthcare services.

The challenge: Why EMA_FRAILTY is needed​

  • Frailty often goes unnoticed until it leads to serious health issues, which makes early detection difficult for many healthcare systems.

  • Many older adults do not receive timely support because traditional check-ups and assessments miss subtle daily health changes.

  • Existing frailty assessments can be intrusive, time-consuming, or impractical for use in daily home environments.

  • A lack of real-time monitoring means that interventions often come too late, reducing their effectiveness and increasing healthcare costs.

  • Older adults face risks to their independence when health problems are detected too late, leading to higher rates of hospitalisation or need for long-term care.

  • Care systems need more cost-effective, scalable tools to manage frailty in ageing populations sustainably.

  • Privacy and ethical concerns can slow down the adoption of continuous monitoring technologies, requiring solutions that respect users’ rights.

  • Many frailty monitoring tools fail to adapt to each individual’s unique lifestyle and health needs, limiting personalisation and user trust.

Objectives​

  1. Early detection and intervention: The system aims to capture subtle daily activity and health changes, enabling early identification of frailty signs for timely interventions. This can slow or reverse frailty progression, enhancing life quality and independence in older adults.

  2. Personalisation of care: The system enables customised analysis of health and activity patterns, leading to tailored care strategies for each individual, enhancing personalization in care management.

  3. Integration of technology in everyday life: The project aims to integrate AAL technologies unobtrusively into the homes of older adults, enhancing system effectiveness and user compliance.

  4. Addressing legal and ethical considerations: The project includes a focused study on legal and ethical considerations of continuous monitoring, prioritizing privacy and data security.

  5. Economic and social impact analysis: The project also includes an analysis of the economic and social implications of the AAL system, emphasizing its cost-effectiveness and scalability in various healthcare contexts.

  6. Stakeholder involvement and validation: The proposal engages primary healthcare providers, patients, and caregivers in designing and testing phases, ensuring the system addresses real-world needs for widespread acceptance.

  7. Barriers to adoption: The project will investigate stakeholders' perceived benefits and barriers, including end-users and healthcare professionals, to enhance implementation and acceptance.

The EMA_FRAILTY project​

  • The project has been awarded €1.2 million in funding under the Transforming Health and Care Systems (THCS) programme.

  • The project brings together a diverse European consortium of universities, healthcare providers, and NGOs, combining expertise in technology, health, social science, and ethics.

  • The project runs for 36 months (April 2025-March 2028).

Work packages​

The EMA_FRAILTY project is organised into dedicated work packages that cover every stage, from system design and real-world testing to legal compliance and sharing results. Each work package focuses on a specific aspect of the project to ensure that research, development, monitoring, evaluation, and communication run smoothly and deliver real impact:

  • WP1: Project management and coordination (led by Universidad de Alicante): Establishes strong project management with clear structures to coordinate tasks, keep partners informed and connected, manage risks, and handle all administrative and financial duties. This ensures the EMA_FRAILTY project stays on track, meets its goals, and uses its resources effectively.

  • WP2: System integration and prototyping (led by Universidad de Alicante): Designs and builds the EMA_FRAILTY AAL system by combining smart sensors, mobile apps, and EMA techniques to monitor daily health. It ensures all components work together seamlessly, tests prototypes in realistic home settings, and makes the system user-friendly, secure, and adaptable for real-time, personalised frailty detection.

  • WP3: Testing and validation (led by Fundatia Ana Aslan International): Tests the EMA_FRAILTY system in real homes by securing ethics approvals, recruiting a diverse group of participants, setting up the system in daily environments, collecting and analysing health data, and using user feedback to refine the system so it works smoothly, respects privacy, and fits into everyday life.

  • WP4: Data management and analysis (led by Universidad de Alicante): Builds a robust data management system that keeps all collected information secure and organised, applies advanced analytics and real-time processing to monitor health trends accurately, protects participants’ privacy under strict legal standards, and uses insights to continuously improve the system’s performance and personalisation.

  • WP5: Social and economic benefits assessment (led by SGH Warsaw School of Economics): Measures how the EMA_FRAILTY system supports older adults’ independence and quality of life, calculates the economic savings for healthcare systems, explores how the solution can be scaled and sustained in different contexts, and develops clear policy recommendations to help decision-makers encourage wider adoption of AAL technologies.

  • WP6: Legal and ethical compliance (led by Università commerciale Luigi Bocconi): Ensures the system complies fully with strict legal and ethical standards, including GDPR and other relevant health and AI regulations. It designs privacy and safety protections from the outset, secures clear consent, respects participants’ rights, manages data security and privacy risks, and sets up regular checks, training, and reporting to maintain compliance.

  • WP7: Healthcare system benefits and effectiveness assessment (led by ISABIAL): Assesses how the system improves older adults’ daily lives and independence, supports healthcare professionals by making care more efficient and accurate, and evaluates wider healthcare system benefits such as reduced hospital stays and lower costs through better monitoring and early intervention.

  • WP8: Dissemination, communication, and exploitation (led by Fundatia Ana Aslan International): Shares EMA_FRAILTY’s results widely to raise awareness of its impact on ageing and frailty care, builds a community of interested users and early adopters as the system develops, helps stakeholders apply project knowledge in practice, keeps partners engaged through regular updates and feedback, and prepares strategies to support future commercialisation and real-world use.

PERT diagram of the EMA_FRAILTY project