Fuzzy optimization to improve mobile wellness applications for young-elderly

Mobile applications and specifically wellness applications are used increasingly by different age-segments of the general population. This is facilitated by the large amount of data collected through various built-in sensors in the smartphone or other mobile devises, e.g. smart watches. Young-elderly cohort (60-75 year old individual) is probably one of the most potential user groups that would benefit from using mobile health and wellness applications, if their needs and preferences are precisely addressed. General knowledge is limited on understanding to what extent mobile wellness applications can and should provide precise recommendations which improve the users’ health and physical conditions. To address this problem, the current study identifies the potential benefits of utilizing fuzzy optimization tools to design recommendation systems that can take into consideration the (i) imprecision in the data and (ii) the imprecision by which one can estimate the effect of a recommendation on the user of the system. The proposed approach, depending on the context of use, identifies a set of actions to be taken by the users in order to optimize the physical or mental condition from various perspectives. The model is illustrated through the example of walking speed optimization which is an important issue for the young-