MQTT in AAL systems for home monitoring of people with dementia

The paradigmatic shift brought by the Internet of Things has already revolutionized many key sectors, like environmental monitoring, grid and energy management, manufacturing, and it can be seen as a promising solution to address challenging societal issues, like the ability to provide significant enhancement to quality of life for the elderly and, in general, people in need. As a consequence, Internet of Things emerges also as the possible next evolution for the Ambient Assisted Living domain. One major issue to address in this context is the identification of a suitable middleware able to leverage the potentialities offered by the Internet of Things and, at the same time, ensure the necessary support to services and functions related to healthcare and personal assistance. This paper provides an overview of middleware solutions designed for Internet of Things in health and wellness domains, and presents a case study related to assistive technology for the home monitoring of people with dementia. It is illustrated how a specific middleware designed for telemetry applications, the MQTT, can be effectively applied in assistive scenarios too, with different architectural options and communication technologies.