Non-Intrusive Monitoring of High Functioning Elderly

描述(申请人提供)：旨在扩大老年人独立生活能力的技术发展通常针对残疾、慢性病或其他原因需要帮助的人。当前研究中的一个关键空白，特别是STTR计划所涉及的，是为65岁以上的人群提供的辅助技术，这些人功能正常，总体上健康，但随着年龄的增长，他们变得越来越虚弱，容易受到事故或疾病的影响，成为致残的医疗事件，失去独立生活的能力。 独居的人面临的风险最大，因为他们的疾病或受伤可能会在相当长的时间内被忽视，将小事件变成严重事件。虽然这些人可以从监测中受益，但其成员可能不能容忍侵入性监测，因为没有明确的医疗需求，而且“以防万一”的家庭监测系统的成本往往超过预期的好处。 为了解决这些问题，这项研究观察到，在许多情况下，关心问题的邻居通常是第一个注意到问题的人，只是通过以非侵入性的方式观察到一个人的日常生活中的巨大变化(例如，灯在应该亮的时候没有亮起)并采取适当的行动。这项工作探索了这样一种假设，即低成本、非侵入性的家庭监控系统可以提供有关房屋居住者(即“关注电子设备的邻居”)福利的可操作信息。实现这一点的创新是智能决策算法，它可以接受简单的传感器输入并学习一个人的日常生活，适应变化，检测重大变化，并采取适当的行动(例如，通知护理人员)。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Technological developments aimed at extending the ability of the elderly to live independently often target those people with a disability, chronic condition, or other reason requiring help with their care. A critical gap in current research, specifically addressed by this STTR program, is assistance technology for the population of persons over 65 years of age who are high-functioning and generally healthy, but are growing increasingly frail as they age and susceptible to an accident or illness becoming a disabling medical incident and eliminating their ability to live independently. Those living alone are at the most risk because their illness or injury may go unnoticed for a considerable length of time, turning a minor incident into a serious one. While this population could benefit from monitoring, its members are likely to be intolerant of intrusive monitoring because there is no clear medical need for it and the costs of a "just-in-case" home monitoring systems often outweigh the perceived benefits. To address these issues, this research observes that, in many cases, a concerned neighbor is often the first person to notice a problem simply by observing, in a non-intrusive manner, a large variation in a person's routine (e.g., lights not on when they should be) and taking appropriate action. This effort explores the hypothesis that a low-cost, non-intrusive home monitoring system can provide actionable information on the welfare of a home's occupant, i.e., an 'Electronic Concerned Neighbor'. The innovation that enables this are intelligent decision algorithms that can take simple sensor inputs and learn a person's routine, adapt to changes, detect significant variations, and take appropriate action (e.g., alert a care provider).