A health-based use case of the Connected Vitality project: the Yooom in the sterile room

The social isolation of people with immunology problems after (or before) transplant operation or immunology illness (e.g. different phases of AIDS, child-cancer, etc.) is a constant issue in Europe and Worldwide that demands immediate attention. Such people are intended to use a clean/sterile room for a period of time while they might feel isolated because of their situation. In this period they cannot have any physical contact with other people, family and friends. For each person this period of time is a hard time to spend without the beloved ones. Moreover, before or after a medical intervention or an illness with possible sad outcome the psychical condition of the person is deplorable. These people, these situations need social connections, they need the family and friends, and they need the personal presence of beloved ones. In this paper a telepresence system is presented, which enables social presence and facilitates social interaction contributing to e-Inclusion of people living in clean/sterile rooms for a period of time. The solutions and facts given by this paper are supported by the Connected Vitality project in the AAL programme: the YoooM device and system. Keywords—Social presence; e-Inclusion; human-computer interaction; multimedia systems.