Wireless Sensors and Controls for Fall Prevention Lights for Alzheimer Patients

加拿大统计局报告说，大约三分之一的加拿大老年人每年都会摔倒，其中65%是在晚上。对于睡眠障碍程度较高的痴呆症患者，跌倒风险显著较高，老年人需要显著高水平的照明来进行姿势定向。在这个项目中，该团队将为老年人，特别是患有阿尔茨海默病和相关痴呆症（ADRD）的老年人开发一种寻路和防跌倒照明系统。这些防坠落灯应该在没有用户控制的情况下自动操作，因为痴呆症患者很难学习任何新东西。无线传感器，如运动，床位占用和门接触将集成到系统中。拟议的集成控制器将统一各种无线连接协议- ZigBee（用于床占用），RF 433 MHz（用于运动和接触传感器），蓝牙（用于未来集成到烟雾和CO探测器和前门锁）和Wi-Fi（用于智能家居集成）。老年人也可能需要不同程度的亮度，这些灯，这取决于他们的视力缺陷，如白内障，黄斑变性。灯光必须在各种调光水平下工作，以实现淡入和淡出。LED灯的调光可能导致灯的时间调制，这是非常不期望的。因此，控制器应当能够适应各种功率驱动器要求以消除闪烁。该项目将帮助Lumentra推出一种独特的老年人安全照明产品。加拿大每年花费20亿加元为经历福尔斯的老年人提供医疗保健。我们的防跌倒灯将有助于大幅减少这一增量医疗保健费用。

Statistics Canada reports that approximately one in three Canadian seniors encounter a fall annually, with 65% of them at night times. Fall risk is significantly higher for dementia patients with higher sleep disturbances and seniors need significantly high levels of illumination for postural orientation. In this project, the team will been developing a way-finding and fall prevention lighting system for seniors, particularly those with Alzheimer's disease and related Dementias (ADRD). These fall prevention lights should operate automatically with no user controls, as it will be very difficult for dementia patients to learn anything new. Wireless sensors such as motion, bed-occupancy, and door contact will be integrated to the system. The proposed integrated controller will unify various wireless connectivity protocols - ZigBee (for bed occupancy), RF 433 MHz (for motion and contact sensors), Bluetooth (for future integration to smoke and CO detectors and front door lock), and Wi-Fi (for Smart Home integration). Seniors also may need varying degree of brightness for these lights, depending on their vision defects, such as cataracts, macular degeneration. The lights have to operate at various dimming levels for fade-in and fade-outs. Dimming of LED lights may result in temporal modulation of the lights which is highly undesirable. The controller should thus be able accommodate a variety of power driver requirements to eliminate flicker. This project will help Lumentra launch a unique product in safety lighting for seniors. Canada spends $2 billions/year for providing health care for seniors who experience falls. Our fall-prevention lights will help substantially reduce this incremental health care expense.