Smart Big Data Platform to Offer Evidence-based Personalised Support for Healthy and Independent Living at Home

The Regional Secretariat for Health and Civil Protection (SRS) is currently running the project SMARTBEAR- SMART BIG DATA PLATFORM TO OFFER EVIDENCE-BASED PERSONALISED SUPPORT FOR HEALTHY AND INDEPENDENT LIVING AT HOME, which aims to provide solutions in the prevention and treatment of comorbidities associated with aging, and thereby improve the quality of life of the senior population. 
SMARTBEAR is a research and innovation project that aims to provide an intelligent and personalized digital solution to sustain and support an independent and healthy lifestyle in the elderly community. The main goal of the project is to implement an innovative platform using smart medical devices, through evidence-based interactions enabled by the use of sensory and environmental medical devices, associated with clinically significant risk factors in older people with various comorbidities.  
The SMARTBEAR project aims to contribute in the search for solutions that can support the active aging of the population, preventing and monitoring health issues related to aging in Região Autónoma da Madeira (RAM).
This project began in September 2019 and, with possible constraints arising from the current pandemic situation due to the Covid-19 disease, it is expected to end in May 2024, with a total funding of 19 993 818 €.
The SMARTBEAR solution will be tested in six European Union countries, namely Spain, France, Greece, Italy, and Romania, and the RAM will represent Portugal in this study. 
Under SMARTBEAR, the RAM, and specifically the SRS, as a partner of this project, will proceed to the experimentation and evaluation of the platform in the context of health services delivery. Thus, it may be possible to demonstrate its effectiveness, extension, sustainability and future cost-effectiveness for the individual and for the health system, being UNINOVA the partner that will provide all the necessary technological support to implement this solution.  
In Madeira, this project funded by the European Union will make a personalized intervention to a group of 100 patients from the Public Health Service of the RAM, aged over 65 years with some prevalent diseases in RAM such as hearing loss, cardiovascular diseases, cognitive changes, anxiety, balance disorders and low back pain. 
All 100 participants who will be recruited in this study must meet the requirement of suffering from chronic low back pain, since it is the focus of the Portuguese component of this European study, which is among the main health conditions affecting the elderly. To this end, in the SMARTBEAR project, an approach of physical training and rehabilitation of the lumbar musculature will be carried out. This training will be in partnership with the Smart4Health project, being implemented in RAM by the SRTC.