What is Middleware

This chapter introduces the use of middleware tools in applications for healthcare and social services, focusing on solutions designed for Interactive Digital Television (IDTV), and discusses its implications to modern roles for easing patient and caretaker relations. The authors explore the capacities of such solutions to assist the patients in their personal needs, optimizing the time and tasks of the caretaker. They discuss the limits of the use of Internet in satisfying the needs of communication of elderly and other patients, and then they propose new roles for caretaking based on this new reality. The authors also present an architecture that allows the remote use and control of electronic devices via IDTV set-top boxes for the middleware Ginga. They show applications based on this architecture that promote healthcare and social services, as a set of infrared lights coupled to a hat that can be used as input for impaired patients, and how an accelerometer can be used with IDTV applications for treatment and entertainment. Before concluding, the authors point out research directions on the topics discussed in this chapter.