An intelligent medical care solution for elderly people with long term health condition based on wireless sensors network technology

Abstract

Older Adults are facing serious difficulties, on a regular basis, to manage their own daily life activities. To live independently and have a good quality of life is quite a challenge, since the majorly of them have long term health condition diseases. Health services providers across EU, informal and formal carer plays major roles in providing the necessary services and support. Diseases on this society are one of the leading causes of death, from which thousands of people die every year. Many of the non-communicable diseases can be prevented by tackling associated risk factors. The cost of treatment of such diseases in the EU is estimated to be over 70% of the Health Service budget. Treatment includes home-care, medication, consultation and many other relevant services. However, these services are still not adequate, due to the lack of implemented technology that enable the older adults to manage their daily life activities independently, taking medications, receive the necessary health services on time, which, in many cases leads to loss of lives and waste of NHS resources. Daily life activities management and telehealth remote monitoring system is one of the potential innovative approaches, to improve the older adult’s quality of life, help live independently, improve NHS services, sustain its economic growth and improve social development. It is a rapidly developing concept where daily life activities, health condition, medical information is transferred through interactive data, and audiovisual media and shared between services provider, informal and formal carer. This paper presents the initial outcomes of the ongoing research program that is planned to develop an Integrated Assisted Living Technology (ALT) multi-functional case driven wireless ad-hoc management system of the daily life activities of older adults using smart sensors and actuators, 3d-video, audio, radio frequency identification and wireless technology, combined with secure cloud and semantic data engineering.