Very small & low cost wearable "care timeliness" monitor

描述（由申请人提供）：为体弱长者提供身体护理的及时性和可靠性对维持他们的健康至关重要。对于那些有行动障碍的人来说，这种身体上的帮助可能包括重新定位帮助以防止或帮助治愈压力性溃疡、排便帮助或失禁产品更换、洗澡、帮助锻炼和喂养帮助。机构常规身体护理，无论是在老年急症护理医院还是在疗养院，通常由护理助理提供。护理助理的工作量很大，报酬往往不高，因此工作流动率很高，如果他们是新移民，可能会有书面语言困难。临床管理不容易监测护理助理提供护理的可靠性，因为大部分护理是在病人房间的隐私中进行的，不会留下明显的可观察到的“残留物”。几乎没有什么技术可以用来监测身体的活动。患有记忆障碍或痴呆症的老年客户可能无法报告护理缺陷，并且有社会原因导致认知完整的患者通常不会报告护理人员的疏忽。如果没有一种手段来监测检查的及时性和可靠性，临床管理就无法纠正护理过程中的缺陷，也无法奖励那些工作最认真的人。本申请的重点是开发一种可穿戴式体位监测器，可以帮助管理身体不适并促进护理质量保证计划。在应用阶段1中，我们计划开发一种位置和运动范围记录设备，该设备非常小，可以放入标准3/4”创可贴的纱布中，非常便宜，可以常规用于维持护理改善计划，并且非常坚固，可以依靠它提供多年的服务。在应用阶段2，我们计划开发软件，自动识别身体护理关键方面的运动特征，并报告护理交付的及时性，而无需临床医生的数据分析专业知识。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The timeliness and reliability of the delivery of body care for the frail elderly is crucial to the maintenance of their health. This physical caregiving for those with mobility impairments may include repositioning assistance to prevent or aid healing pressure ulcers, toileting assistance or incontinence product changing, bathing, aid with exercise, and feeding assistance. Institutional routine body care, whether at a geriatric acute care hospital or in a nursing home, is usually delivered by nursing aides. Nursing aides have large workloads, are not often paid well and, hence, have high job turnover rates, and may have written language difficulties if they are recent immigrants. It is not easy for clinical management to monitor the reliability of care delivery by nursing aides since much of the care is done in the privacy of a patient's room and leaves no obvious observable "residue". Little technology is available to monitor physical caregiving. Elderly clients with memory impairments or dementia may not be able to report care deficiencies and there are social reasons why cognitively intact patients don't often report caregivers' oversights. Without a means to monitor the timeliness and reliability of caregiving, clinical management is impaired in its ability to correct care process deficiencies and to reward those who are most conscientious in their work. The focus of this application is to develop a wearable body position monitor that can assist in managing physical caregiving and facilitate care quality assurance programs. In application phase 1, we plan to develop a position and range of motion recording device that is so small that it can fit in the gauze of a standard 3/4" Band-Aid, so inexpensive that it can be routinely used to sustain care improvement programs, and so robust that it can be depended upon to provide years of service. In application phase 2, we plan to develop software that automatically identifies the movement signatures of crucial aspects of body care and reports the timeliness of care delivery without the need for clinician data analysis expertise.