Hospital and Home Environments Automation for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Patients: Building Information Modeling and the Internet of Things in Digital Environments

Abstract

In this work, we present a novel distributed software platform for patients with neurodegenerative diseases that affect motor neurons. The linking point between this wide range of diseases is the strong social impact they have, degrading the freedom of action of the patient; the loss of functionality of motor neurons, caused by progressive degradation, makes the body unable to move. Thus, our solution aims at making patients more autonomous in their daily activities and at improving remote health-care monitoring for medical staff by combining virtual reality, building information modeling (BIM), the Internet of Things (IoT), and eye-tracking technologies. Starting from the 3-D parametric BIM model, patients can virtually explore the surrounding environment (through eye movements) and control the environment by interacting with IoT smart devices, thus performing different tasks.