| Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 425898 | Future Generation Computer Systems | 2014 | 13 Pages |
•We propose an empathetic u-pillbox system.•We design a holistic elderly healthcare framework.•This research emphasizes on understanding of the elderly and provision of humanistic care.•This system provides personalized healthcare based on Cyber-I, digital clone of Real-I.•Data mining technology is the key to the wisdom discovery from data.
A wide range of specific health issues affects the elderly, but one particularly significant issue in geriatric healthcare is non-adherence to medication regimens, particularly among elderly patients living alone. To address this problem, a range of electronic pillbox devices has been developed. Although these may offer a partial solution to this problem by ameliorating the issue of failing memory, it is important to have a full picture of medication adherence that includes other aspects besides forgetfulness.This article proposes an empathetic u-pillbox system that aims to overcome the shortcomings of existing systems in ensuring adherence to a medication regime and makes an effort to design a holistic elderly healthcare framework by supporting additional functionalities like providing personalized services to the elderly based on an awareness of their individual situations by placing emphases on understanding of the elderly and provision of humanistic care. This system consists of three main processes: data acquisition of the elderly situation and medicine taking state; data analysis and elderly model enhancement; and provision of empathetic services to the elderly, in which cyber-I, human model, data cycle for the spiral quality of model enhancement, knowledge fusion towards wisdom for providing smart services are our critical concepts and techniques. This article will describe the system by going through three scenarios concerning the elderly using and interacting with the proposed u-pillbox system.Although this system is designated for geriatric healthcare, it has a potential extension to general health monitoring and care at home. Moreover, there are many potential applications in clinic or hospital medication care systems. We believe the proposed framework to be a promising approach to one of the great social challenges facing societies in the 21st century.
