Wireless Sensor Network for Ambient Assisted Living

Abstract

There is a great demand, in both the public and the private sector, to take the actions needed to expand uses for electronic devices, assistive and monitoring software, and home health communication technologies to provide assisted living and health care to those in need. By means of using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to assist and monitor elderly, disabled, and chronically ill individuals in the home can improve quality of life, improve health outcomes, and help control health care. Assisted living technologies are for people needing assistance with Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) but wishing to live for as long as possible independently. Assisted living exists to bridge the gap between independent living and nursing homes. Residents in assisted living centers are not able to live by themselves but do not require constant care either. Assisted living facilities offer help with ADLs such as eating, bathing, dressing, laundry, housekeeping, and assistance with medications. Many facilities also have centers for medical care; however, the care offered may not be as intensive or available to residents as the care offered at a nursing home. Assisted living is not an alternative to a nursing home, but an intermediate level of long-term care appropriate for many seniors. Increasing health care costs and an aging population are placing significant strains upon the health care system. Small pilot studies have shown that meeting seniors needs for independence and autonomy, coupled with expanded use of home health technologies, mitigate against the circumstances above, and provide improved health outcomes. Difficulty with reimbursement policies, governmental approval processes, and absence of efficient deployment strategies has hampered adopting such technologies. Most efforts to-date of applying ICT to health care in the home have focused on telemedicine, in which ICT is used to connect the patient and his biometric information to a health care provider either in real-time or into storage for analysis at a later time (Biemer & Hampe, 2005; Lubrin et al., 2006; Ross, 2004; Rowan & Mynatt, 2005). While such functionality will be included in Information Technology for Assisted Living at Home (ITALH), the main objective in tele-assistence is to provide smart monitors and sensors that will alert the user and/or their care provider (be that a doctor, nurse, family member, neighbor, friend, etc.) of events such as accidents or acute illness and to diagnostic events that could indicate a deterioration in his health condition. This differs from efforts (Sixsmith & Johnson, 2004a), in which IR sensors array are used to detect such events as accidental falls, in that the sensors themselves detect 1