About us

REDAZIONE PORTALE SIVA
Polo Tecnologico Fondazione Don Carlo Gnocchi Onlus
via Capecelatro 66, 20148 Milano
tel 02 40308283 - 40308305 fax 02 4048919 e-mail portale@siva.it

Editorial Team

Ing. Renzo Andrich
Tdr. Antonio Caracciolo
Ing. Valerio Gower
Ing. Lucia Pigini
Ing. Matteo Serratoni
Ing. Andrea Agnoletto
Dr. Sabrina Vincenti

IT infrastructure

Dr. Enrico Carnelos
Don Gnocchi Sistemi srl (via Palazzolo 21, 20149 Milano)

The parent organisation

The Don Gnocchi Foundation (Fondazione Don Carlo Gnocchi ONLUS) is the largest private non-profit provider of care and rehabilitation services in Italy. It was founded just after the second world war by don Carlo Gnocchi in order to provide care, rehabilitation, education and social support to children injured by war. Since that time, the Foundation has rapidly grown and now runs 30 medical and social rehabilitation centres throughout Italy, offering medical, social and vocational rehabilitation to individuals of all ages with a variety of physical, sensory and mental disabilities. It employs over 5400 persons including medical, paramedical, technical and administrative personnel. Funding is based mainly on the medical and vocational rehabilitation services, provided according to the current National Health Service and Regional policies.

SIVA: a client-centred service

Most Centres of the Foundation are equipped with a SIVA service (Servizio Informazioni e Valutazione Ausili, which stands for Assistive Technology Assessment Service) offering individual consultation upon appointment on assistive technology to any persons requesting it. These are mainly persons with disabilities; however, clients include also families with disabled members, rehabilitation & health care professionals, teachers, architects, health authorities and sometimes even manufacturers.

Assistive Technologies, Accessibility, Autonomy

According to the ISO 9999:2011 International Standard, assistive technology (AT) refers to

"...any product (including devices, equipment, instruments and software), especially produced or generally available, used by or for persons with disability for participation; or to protect, support, train, measure or substitute for body functions or structures or activities; or to prevent impairments, activity limitations or participation restrictions..."

AT can enable disabled or elderly people in many aspects of their daily lives, including personal care, mobility, communication, environmental adaptations, education, work or leisure. Today´s technologies have greatly expanded the possibility for persons with severe functional limitations to live independently and participate in all aspects of society. Technology is available: the issue is how to find out the specific technology that best matches each individual case. For this purpose, it is important to resort to reliable information tools and to professional counselling services. This was the main reason for the Don Gnocchi Foundation to establish the SIVA network.

The SIVA network: a 30-years experience in research and service provision

The SIVA idea was launched in 1980 as a research project of the Milano Bioengineering Centre, jointly established by the Don Gnocchi Foundation and the Milano Polytechnic. In the early eighties the four main “pillars” of Siva activity gradually took wing: the AT Database, the AT Information/Advice Service, AT Research and AT Education. Over the following years, the database was developed by taking advantage of leading-edge advancements in information technology, until being acknowledged – by Local Health Agencies, rehabilitation Centres, Users organisations – as the major information resource in the AT field in Italy.

Over the years, a methodology has been also developed for assistive technology assessment, which has been gradually implemented in all the assessment services of the Don Gnocchi Foundation (in the whole providing over 2000 consultations /year to persons of any age with any kind of disability or pathology). Following the SIVA model, similar services have been established all over Italy by other organisations, such as Local Health Authorities of the National Health Service and Users Organisations.

Many research activities have been carried out within national programmes (National Research Council, Regions, Ministries) and European programmes (Helios/Handynet, Tide, Telematics, Race, 6th and 7th EU Framework Programmes, eTEN, IST-PSP). In three European project the Don Gnocchi Foundation served as project leader: EUSTAT (Empowering Users through Assistive Technology), EASTIN (European Assistive Technology Information Network) and ETNA (European Thematic Network on Assistive Information and Communication Technology). Further information can be found on the website of the assistive technology research team at the Biomedical Technology Department www.siva.it

One of the most important outcomes of these research activities is the EASTIN network, a Web Portal that aggregates all existing information on assistive technology in Europe and makes it available in any official EU language thanks to leading-edge language technologies.

Hundreds of Courses and other kinds of educational activities – mainly aimed at rehabilitation professionals - have been carried out during 30 years of activities. In particular, since 1999 a Postgraduate Course for AT practitioners is carried out every year, through an agreement with the Milano Catholic University.

Expertise and Tools

Each SIVA assessment service is staffed with a multidisciplinary team including occupational therapists, physiotherapists, technicians and in some cases also other professionals (eg. Psychologist expert in educational technologies). The SIVA Portal is the key information tool for the team. The hub of the network is the the DAT Centre in Milano (the acronym stands for Occupational Therapy, Assistive Technology, Smart Home), equipped with a large permanent exhibition of technical aids, where most types of assistive technologies can be directly tried out; it includes several environments (mobility, communication, computer access, kitchen, bathroom, playground etc...) which represent the most common situations that a person with disability may encounter in daily life at home, outdoors, in the worksite and in the school. It also includes a smart home that is used to carry out individual rehabilitation/educational programmes for independent living; when it is not in use for clinical purposes, the smart home is used for research and personnel training activities.

Collaboration with Public Agencies

Besides responding to individual users´ needs, SIVA Information /Advice centres are prepared to provide support to public community agencies in relation to training of professionals or planning service delivery, thus helping them improve the quality of service offered to citizens.