LAQA GmbH

Liquid intake is an extremely essential part of daily nutrition. Although people are widely aware of the importance of drinking sufficiently and on a regular basis, they just don’t do it or forget about it during the day. The resulting dehydration can cause, promote and push various symptoms and diseases. The intensity and malicious effects of dehydration rapidly increase with age.

The German SME developed a multi-component solution for the elderly and seniors to remind and stimulate them to drink according to their individual needs. On top, any fluid intake is recorded and analysed in real-time. The solution is based on a well-designed smart drinking device and state-of-the-art data processing.

Besides the requirements of products for Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) the concept also includes various requests of professional care units as well as advice from special interest groups. Amongst others the main features are

- easy-to-use
- highly integrable into any existing environment
- lightweight and robust hardware
- highest privacy standards
- affordable

Features with benefits for

• Users
Working with the solution the user benefits from highly individualised timing and quantum advice. The solution sustainably supports him in starting feeling better and living healthier which leads to a longer self-determined life and a reduced intake of medication.

• Caregivers/Nurses
In a caretaking situation caregivers or nurses enjoy the reduced documentary work, efficiency increase and the resulting time savings allow to focus more on day-to-day care work. This is primarily based on a fully automated, legal and tamper-proof drinking protocol.

• Care units
In a care facility’s point of view the implementation of the solution results in an improvement of quality, cost-reduction and a more efficient staff deployment. This is amended by a highly flexible interface design to operate directly with almost any local data processing software.

• Research
Aggregation of a great number of real-life data results in very profound information content which can be used as a basis for different analyses and e.g. referencing by R&D departments. Additionally, this solution is capable of collecting not only drinking data but also highly relevant data, amongst others, for Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s research.

• National Healthcare System
Besides, the benefits for users, nurses, researchers and their respective environment working with this solution also creates a high potential of cost savings e.g. for social insurance carriers.

The solution shows a multi-component structure which allows best to meet various requirements and to support further component development. As it comes to the drinking device the vessel is a small, lightweight and robust item. The user can extend its daily use and comfort features by adding a variety of accessories. Beyond these aspects of usability, the device can easily be cleaned. The requests regarding the integrability are met by designing a stand-alone device without any further requirements to the operational environment. Additionally,the solution provides interfaces to combine aggregated information with almost any IP-based services like Electronic Health Record (EHR) or administrative software. Since personal health Information is processed, based on big data technologies and algorithms driven by artificial intelligence (AI), top priority on keeping highest privacy standards is guaranteed.