Distributed accelerometers as a main component in detecting activities of daily living

Abstract

In this paper we describe the use of accelerometers in a system aiming to detect Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) of elderly people in home environments. Our aim is to enable senior citizens to remain in their familiar home environments as long as possible by increasing their feeling for safety and autonomy in a minimally invasive way. Therefore we developed a ZigBee-based smart system which uses distributed accelerometers as main sensory component and does not need the resident to wear any artifact. In this way certain activity patterns could be recognized respecting the users' privacy. We gathered certain ADLs manually from the raw data and validated them in different ways. In this manner 151 out of 155 ADLs could be verified. In this paper an overview of the system together with the findings of the real life tests are presented. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.