In-home Health Monitoring System for Solitary Elderly

In this paper we propose a sensor-based monitoring system that evaluates the health status of solitary elderly based on daily living activities, and provides forecasts of emergency situations to a local nursing center without explicit user interaction. We focus on three daily living activities: urination, kitchen work, and activities related to maintaining physical cleanliness because these activities are closely involved in maintaining a healthy lifestyle and are usually accompanied by the usage of tap water. There is a certain regularity in the usage of tap water in these quotidian activities, and health status is correlated with the regularity. Therefore, the system monitors health status by using water flow sensors which are attached to faucets in the kitchen and washroom and to the toilet. An advantage of this method is that the system can be readily installed in any type of housing at low cost. In addition, this system does not require personal data to be saved or transmitted. We will present the initial results from an experiment.