Michel Oey – DigitalLife.nl

Digi-doen

admin — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 16:17:12 +0000

Older adults with care needs are staying at home longer. This increases the pressure on home care due to more older people needing care combined with fewer professionals available to support them. Therefore, there is a focus on more self-management, informal care, and digital solutions. However, many older adults require professional support to maintain their daily functioning and social participation, where a social network is crucial.

A digital platform offers opportunities to support older adults in their daily functioning and social participation, in collaboration with (informal) care. The platform has features to encourage daily activities at home and participation in community activities, as well as support the network.

Although care and welfare professionals are increasingly open to digitally supported care, digital tools and interventions remain underutilized. Professionals are uncertain about how to integrate these into care while maintaining quality. Additionally, they have little confidence that older adults, especially those with fewer digital skills, will use the digital platform.

This project aims to support older adults with care needs and their networks in sustainably optimizing and maintaining daily functioning and social participation at home with the help of a network of professionals and informal care supported by digitalization. We do this by further developing, integrating, and evaluating an existing digital platform in collaboration with older adults, their social network, and professionals.

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Project duration

Feb 2026 -1 Feb 2030

Project manager

dr Margriet Pol

Researchers

prof. dr Somaya Ben Allouch

dr Michel Oey

Stephanie Kramer MSc

Daniël Bossen, Faculteit Gezondheid, HvA

Jesse Aarden, Faculteit Gezondheid, HvA

Rick Kwekkeboom, Faculteit Maatschappij en Recht, HvA

Merel van Schravendijk, Faculteit Maatschappij en Recht, HvA

Funding

SIA RAAK-PRO

Partners

Intelligente thuiszorg voor dementie

admin — Tue, 01 Jul 2025 12:21:00 +0000

Reinforcement Learning-based Conversational System for Personalized Support

In the Netherlands alone, dementia affects approximately 290K people. As the population ages and caregiver shortages grow, supporting people with early-stage dementia to maintain their ability to live at home as long as possible becomes crucial. In this project we aim to develop an intelligent and conversational home system to enhance the quality of life for elderly people with early-stage dementia. We propose to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques to provide personalized care by mapping the need and preference of individuals.

Built based on the just-in-time adaptive intervention (JITAI) design concept, the conversational system will adapt to contexts of individual users and therefore provide the right types of support at right timings taking account personal preferences and contextual status.

We will design and develop multimodal interventions (combining text, image, music, etc.) for target users, as well as the optimal deliver strategies on conservational interactions between the intelligent system and human users.

The project will fit under the umbrella of KIA social theme ‘Health & Care’. This innovation enables families and caregivers to leverage advanced AI technology for improved support, offering societal and economic benefits by enhancing care quality and easing the burden on caregivers.

CALL
Wanted: participants for this research, november 2025!

Project duration

1 Jul 2025 -30 Jun 2028

Project manager

Shihan Wang, Utrecht University

Researchers

prof. dr Somaya Ben Allouch
Stephanie Kramer MSc
dr Michel Oey
Wen-Tseng Chang, Utrecht University

Funding

CLICKNL

Partners

illi Engineering B.V.

Wie Zorgt?

admin — Fri, 01 Jul 2022 13:56:00 +0000

The Development of an Intelligent Healthcare Environment that Supports Healthcare Professionals

CAUSE
The problem addressed by this research project is the high workload of care professionals in dementia care. Due to an increase in the number of elderly people with dementia, the demand for care is increasing, while the shortage of care professionals is growing. This workload can be greatly reduced by using smart technological innovations such as an Intelligent Care Environment.

HOW DOES AN INTELLIGENT CARE ENVIRONMENT WORK?
An Intelligent Care Environment uses sensor techniques and uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to deliver personalized care by identifying and responding to care needs. The Intelligent Care Environment works together with the care professional. This solution direction is further elaborated in this project together with four healthcare parties and three innovative SME organisations.

Just-in-time adaptive interventions (JITAI) are developed based on the case ‘Support with food and drink’, so that the healthcare professional is supported in performing certain care tasks.
An example of an intervention is giving the person-adjusted sensory stimuli (sounds, lights and projections) at the right time that stimulate seniors to eat. Such interventions reduce the pressure on the healthcare professional and improve the quality of care.

ATTENTION TO HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS
Not only the integration of the AI modules is important, but also how the AI is ‘shown’ to the healthcare professional. That is why this project also pays extra attention to the interaction between healthcare professionals and the Intelligent Healthcare Environment, which increases ease of use and allows both client and healthcare professional to experience a higher degree of autonomy.

By further developing the prototype of the Intelligent Care Environment in healthcare institutions in collaboration with various healthcare professionals and paying attention to the development of AI and Interaction with the system, the wishes and needs of the healthcare professionals can be integrated into the Intelligent Care Environment. This is done in three iterations, with the three successive available living labs becoming increasingly complex and realistic.

The project has been featured in the first press newsletter of the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (2025).

Project duration

1 Jul 2022 -1 Jul 2024

Project manager

Stephanie Kramer MSc

Researchers

prof. dr Somaya Ben Allouch

drs Monique Schaule Jullens

dr Michel Oey

Wen-Tseng Chang

Saskia Robben

Funding

RAAK-Publiek (Regieorgaan SIA)

Partners

SO-NUTS

admin — Thu, 01 Apr 2021 14:52:00 +0000

Preventing obesity, sarcopenia, and Sarcopenic Obesity in retirement – digital personalized interventions for healthy NUTrition and physical activity for Seniors (SO-NUTS).

This research project is about prevention of unhealthy weight gain and obesity during crucial phases throughout the lifespan.

The aging population faces two conditions that threaten healthy aging: high fat mass (obesity) and low muscle mass and function (sarcopenia). Both conditions are independently associated with comorbidity, disability, low quality of life, and early death. The combination of both– referred to as sarcopenic obesity– synergistically increases the risk of adverse health outcomes. The two conditions often co-occur as they reinforce each other and share common aetiology, mainly poor nutrition and inactivity.

Although all aging people are at risk of gaining weight and losing muscle mass, during the transition from working life to retirement there is an even higher risk of becoming overweight and sarcopenic due to changes in hormonal status, poor nutritional intakes and lower physical activity levels. Even so, retirement offers a great window of opportunity to improve lifestyle, as older adults already need to restructure their daily activities. Furthermore, adopting a healthy lifestyle around the age of retirement offers sufficient time to prevent obesity, sarcopenia, sarcopenic obesity and provides long-term benefits, including healthy ageing and dependence in later life.

To stimulate weight loss/prevent weight gain while preserving muscle mass, it is critical that both physical activity and adequate nutrition be addressed. It is key to change behaviour in a sustainable manner, providing scientifically proven, personalized, and acceptable principles that can be integrated in daily life. Health technologies are promising tools for delivering personalized and appealing lifestyle interventions to a large group of people while keeping health care costs low. At this moment, there is a lack of effective sustainable interventions that focus on retirement as an important turning point to promote both nutrition and physical activity behaviour.

We aim to provide essential insights required to develop innovative strategies for preventing obesity, sarcopenia and sarcopenic obesity. Using these insights, we will design a personalized digital program focused on nutrition and exercise that helps empowering people to lose weight while preserving muscle mass and function. We focus on a population that is, on the one hand, at high risk of developing sarcopenic obesity, while on the other hand showing a great window of opportunity of adopting a healthier lifestyle.

Have a look at the SO-NUTS website for some useful videos regarding behavioral change for lifestyle improvement.

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Project duration

1 Apr 2021 -31 Dec 2025

Project manager

prof. dr Peter Weijs, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (AUAS)

Researchers

prof. dr Somaya Ben Allouch

Josje Schoufour, AUAS

Funding

JPI Healthy Diet for Healthy Life (HDHL) (EU financiering)

Partners

De interactieve woonkamer – Guiding Environment

admin — Sat, 10 Mar 2018 13:33:00 +0000

A large-scale technological transformation is taking place, whereby buildings and building components can be made increasingly ‘smarter’. However, this technological progress is accompanied by a change. Not only in the way building’s function, but also in the way they are developed and built.
In addition to major technological changes, influential social changes are also taking place; aging and greater grey pressure are two examples of this. This project aims to develop an interactive living room that helps people with dementia to live independently at home for longer. Stimulating the ability to independently perform General Daily Operations (GDO) is the most important focus area in maintaining and increasing the quality of life of this group. The interactive living room to be developed aims to support and stimulate this GDO, mobility and orientation.

The interactive living room is being developed by various small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) that have technology that can contribute to the above goal. In addition, HAN, HvA, Fontys and TU / e are involved as knowledge partners in the project.

The aim of the project is two-fold:
- An approach for the development of interactive building components (development of a toolbox)
- One innovative and interactive space (the interactive living room), tested in two living labs.

The first living lab will serve as a technical test in which the first prototype can be improved. The second living lab is in DrieGasthuizenGroep, where a second prototype is installed and where the reaction, acceptance and the effect on residents, care and informal care can be viewed. This public partner is involved in the entire design process, so that the input and needs of these different stakeholders are introduced early in the process. This iterative process will ultimately not lead alone to an interactive living room that better meets the needs of the user, but also to a better acceptance for implementation in practice.

The project ‘The interactive living room – Guiding Environment’ is a SIA-RAAK SME project (secretary: HAN).

Read here the article ‘Intelligent systeem verbetert wooncomfort kwetsbare ouderen’ , Installatie Journaal, 11 januari 2021.

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Project duration

10 Mar 2018 -1 Mar 2020

Project manager

Architecture in Health (HAN)

Researchers

dr Michel Oey

dr Nazli Cila

Saskia Robben

Sergio Bondietti

Funding

SIA RAAK

Partners

e-Health Gebruikers Gilde

admin — Tue, 12 Dec 2017 15:13:00 +0000

In the eHealth Users Guild, entrepreneurs work together with the elderly, family and carers on the successful deployment and marketing of modern supporting technology.

The project offers an open work and learning environment in which we experience, co-create and integrate innovative eHealth applications towards the desired culture change and care innovation.

Central question
‘How do you make the choice for eHealth (easier) in daily practice?’

Reason and challenge
Within the ‘Silver Economy’ expectations are high with regard to eHealth products and services that can support the self-reliance and well-being of the elderly at home. In practice, it is not always so nice and easy: the elderly and their formal and informal carers adopt modern technology with difficulty. The business community speaks of an ‘implementation infarction’.

Solution
To sustainably boost the economic power of the ‘Silver Economy’, the ‘eHealth User Guild’ project focuses on the successful implementation (including awareness, user-friendliness and revenue model) of eHealth services and products to support the elderly, healthcare providers and entrepreneurs. Through experiencing, co-creating and integrating eHealth applications, entrepreneurs in Living Labs work with the elderly and carers on the much-needed cultural shift towards the successful deployment of eHealth at home.

The intended results of this project after three years are:

Strengthening the ‘Silver Economy’ with a maximum of 17 internationally marketable eHealth innovations;
Give regional, innovative SMEs access to ‘The eHealth User Guild’, plus to a regional, open eHealth implementation environment to strengthen and accelerate eHealth innovations – also to be used after the project period;
A minimum of 225 eHealth applications, social and technological, integrated by the elderly and those involved in at least 225 homes in the Amsterdam metropolitan area;
Forming a broad eHealth scale-up coalition of at least 900 eHealth conscious elderly, 30 eHealth expert (home) care professionals and 60 involved organizations;
Making organizations future-proof by healthcare providers through integration of eHealth in the range of services, also after the project period.

In this way we work together for acceptance of digital care!

The Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences is especially involved in the implementation research and also as an entrepreneur from the Hipper Academy.
The purpose of this implementation study is to develop a method for eHealth implementation together with users (elderly and healthcare professionals) and entrepreneurs. This should provide practical tools for users to actually use modern assistive technology in practice (to support the daily functioning of older people).

In this research project, eHealth implementation is studied at two levels:
1. the process of implementation of eHealth innovations by users;
2. (successful) implementation of approximately 17 concrete eHealth innovations based on acceptance, integration and upscaling.

More information can be found on the websites of the GezondheidFabriek and Waag Technology & Society.

Project duration

12 Dec 2017 -31 Dec 2021

Researchers

prof. dr Somaya Ben Allouch

dr Michel Oey

Saskia Robben

Funding

Dit onderzoeksproject wordt gefinancierd uit de EFRO subsidie: het Europees Fonds voor regionale ontwikkeling.