title: Rhythm of daily living and detection of atypical days for elderly people living alone as determined with a monitoring system.
abstract: We have developed a system for monitoring the health of elderly people living at home. Infrared and other sensor outputs are collected using a monitoring program installed on a personal computer (PC) in the home at a sampling rate of 1 Hz. Once each day, the data are transferred to a server through the Internet using a cable television (TV) connection. An elderly subject was monitored for a 12-day baseline period and completed a daily questionnaire about her activities. This enabled us to identify the rhythm of daily living (sleeping, 23:00-04:59; getting up/breakfast, 05:00-08:59; indoor activities/going out, 09:00-16:59; and dinner/going to bed, 17:00-22:59) and the average outputs from the sensors in the rooms. The subject was then monitored for a further six months. By identifying sensor output counts outside the limits of mean +/- 3SD, we were able to detect atypical days. During the six-month monitoring period, 29 atypical days were detected. We suggest that the monitoring system may be effective in tele-rehabilitation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, Osaka Electro-Communication University, Osaka, Japan. s-ryoji@isc.osakac.ac.jp
authors.forename: Ryoji
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Suzuki
authors.forename: Mitsuhiro
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ogawa
authors.forename: Sakuko
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Otake
authors.forename: Takeshi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Izutsu
authors.forename: Yoshiko
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Tobimatsu
authors.forename: Tsutomu
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Iwaya
authors.forename: Shin-ichi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Izumi
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006299:Health Services for the Aged; D006801:Humans; D007259:Infrared Rays; D020407:Internet; D007564:Japan; D018670:Monitoring, Ambulatory / Q000379:methods*; D009043:Motor Activity; D010507:Periodicity; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D013686:Telemetry