Specific programme: Health, demographic change and wellbeing
UPV/EHU Partner Status: Coordinator
UPV/EHU PI: María Inés Torres Barañano
Project start: 01/11/2017
Project end:   31/10/2020

Web: http://www.empathic-project.eu/

Brief description: The EMPATHIC Research & Innovation project will research, innovate and validate new paradigms, laying the foundation for future generations of Personalised Virtual Coaches to help elderly people to live independently. The wellness coaching advice will promote healthy habits and behaviour, by challenging each user to transform their personal goals and needs into actions.

The EMPATHIC Virtual Coach (EMPATHIC-VC) will engage the healthy-senior user to take care of potential chronic diseases, maintain a healthy diet, have adequate physical activity as well as encourage social engagement, thus contributing to the older adults’ ability to maintain a satisfying and independent lifestyle. The EMPATHIC-VC will motivate the user through a friendly virtual coach to reach pre-set benefits, whose achievement will be measured through project-defined metrics. Our ambition is to create a personal, friendly and familiar environment for the users, avoiding the threatening effects of unfamiliar new gadgets or an excessive focus on medical supervision. The project will look beyond the basic medical and physical needs of a person, to the link between body and emotional well-being.

The EMPATHIC-VC will be capable of perceiving the emotional and social state of a person, in the learned context of the senior users’ expectations and requirements, and their personal history, and will respond adaptively to his/her needs.