A Study of long term tendencies in residents' activities of daily living at a group home for people with dementia using RFID slippers

Abstract

A growing number of the elderly with dementia are accommodated to group homes and live with caregivers in Japan. We are concerned with Activities of Daily Living(ADL) of these residents and installed into a group home a sensor network as a pilot study to record and analyze their whereabouts. Twenty one antennas were placed under mats and five residents wore slippers into which Radio Frequency IDentification(RFID) tags were inserted. We collected location data for thirty months and looked for long term tendencies in their activities. We found that the information concerning their whereabouts may indicate their waning health conditions and may reflect caregivers' treatment. We also found a seasonal effect on residents' mobilities, a decline in summer. The result shows that location data may be exploited as a valuable source to recognize residents' slowly changing conditions. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.