Recent years have seen an explosion of internet of things (IoT) technologies being released to the market. There has also been an emerging interest in the potentials of IoT devices to support people with chronic health conditions. In this paper, we describe the results of engagements to scope the future potentials of IoT for supporting people with Parkinson's (PwP). We ran a 2-day multi-disciplinary event with professionals with expertise in Parkinson's and IoT, to explore the opportunities, challenges and benefits. We then ran 4 workshops, engaging 13 PwP and caregivers, to scope out the needs, values and desires that the community has for utilizing IoT to monitor their symptoms. This work contributes considerations for future IoT solutions that might support PwP in better understanding their condition, through the provision of objective measurements that correspond to their, currently unmeasured, subjective experiences.

The development, testing and evaluation of novel approaches to Intelligent Environment data processing require access to datasets which are of high quality, validated and annotated. Access to such datasets is limited due to issues including cost, flexibility, practicality, and a lack of a globally standardized data format. These limitations are detrimental to the progress of research. This paper provides an overview of the Open Data Initiative and the use of simulation software (IE Sim) to provide a platform for the objective assessment and comparison of activity recognition solutions. To demonstrate the approach, a dataset was generated and distributed to 3 international research organizations. Results from this study demonstrate that the approach is capable of providing a platform for benchmarking and comparison of novel approaches.

A smart environment is a physical space where smart devices/technologies are applied to continuously sense the occupant's daily living activities or health condition. Recent years have witnessed the application of smart environments to support independent living for elderly people or for people with chronic conditions. Nevertheless, most of the projects have been exclusively designed to support instances of single occupancy. In an effort to move beyond the scenario of a single occupant within a smart environment, this paper investigates the feasibility of using thermal sensors to detect the presence of multi-occupants and to track and visualise their motions. Results indicate that the use of thermals sensor can detect multi-occupancy, including moving subjects in addition to static subjects. The system developed demonstrated the ability to track up to 5 occupants, although mistrackings were found to occur when the individuals were apart after they stayed closely together.

Current clinical methods for the assessment of Parkinson's disease suffer from inconvenience, infrequency and subjectivity. WiiPD is an approach for the objective home based assessment of Parkinson's disease which utilizes the intuitive and sensor rich Nintendo Wii Remote. Combined with an electronic patient diary, a suite of mini-games, a metric analyzer, and a visualization engine, we propose that this system can complement existing clinical practice by providing objective metrics gathered frequently over extended periods of time. In this paper we detail the approach and introduce a series of metrics deemed capable of quantifying the severity of tremor and bradykinesia in those with Parkinson's disease. The system has been tested on a 71 year old participant with Parkinson's disease over a period of 15 days, a 72 year old control user without Parkinson's disease, and a group of 8 young adults. Results indicate a clear correlation between patient self rating scores of tremor severity and metric values obtained, in addition to clear differences in metrics obtained from each user group. These results suggest that this approach is capable of indicating the presence and severity of the motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease that affect arm motor control.