Gardening in Ambient Assisted Living

• Relying on Ambient Assisted Living systems should not confine people to the indoors.
• The garden as part of a home should be included into AAL concepts.
• We outline an AAL Garden, including supporting as well as preventive activities.
• We derive four meta level requirements for the implementation of such a garden.

This paper suggests to extend the concepts of Ambient Assisted Living, active ageing and ageing in place to the outdoor areas of a home: the garden.We examine the motivations and possible benefits of gardening in the generation 65+, especially in regard to managing health and well-being. From there, we explore technical assistance solutions, thinking them ahead into a dynamically adapting Ambient Assisted Living Garden. We derive a design guideline for the implementation of intelligent AAL Gardens, raising awareness that gardening is a leisure activity which should be supported through ICT, as it is popular in that age group and has been shown to be related to many positive effects. We aim to encourage more research and a practical realization of this empowering technological concept that enables people to live independently at home, doing what they like, without being confined to indoor spaces.