SMARTA: Smart ambiente and wearable home monitoring for elderly

Abstract

The last two decades show that population is continuously and gradually aging; in Italy, the percentage of over-sixties has increased since 1980 by more than 50% while the over-eighties by more than 150 %. Aging causes a consequent psycho-physical decline which in many cases requires specific care and precautions by relatives. However, as can be easily inferable from the percentage of elderly just shown, today the national health-care systems are not able to manage and take charge of all these elders. More and more seniors are choosing to live alone, with all the problems related to emergencies and urgencies cases that can occur due to poor health status related to aging (falls, cardiovascular events, neurological events). In this case, providing health-care initiates to have its new challenges. One of the worst possible case of emergency in elderly living alone is bad injury within the home without the possibility for seeking a help. This paper presents a work related to this issue; project SMARTA, focused on biomedical and environmental monitoring for the active aging. The project is based on the use of biomedical sensors and sensorized garments for health status and cardio-monitoring, and accelerometers fixed on the floor for activity and fall detection. All this sensors are integrated in a system that is used for monitoring elderly both indoor and outdoor during their daily life thanks also to the connection over the Internet.