Alarm communication network to help carers of the elderly for safety purposes: a survey of a project

Over years, radical changes in engineering technology have taken place due to greatly improved instrumentation, enhanced computing power, new sensors and upgraded transmission mediums making it possible to achieve in the field what once could only be done on laboratory models. In daily life, the use of an active self-testing instrumentation endowed with a self-diagnostic capability built into the structural fabric of a machine permits us to monitor the initiation of breakdown, corrosion and erosion. This has become particularly important in such means of transportation as planes, boats and automobiles where advanced instrumentation, signal processing and pattern recognition systems operate in fairly conventional structures. By capitalizing on the technological progress in the field of instrumentation and data processing, help can be contemplated for elderly people in nursing homes through detection of abnormal situations. The continued assistance to elderly people is achieved by utilizing a technological system respectful of the elderly's privacy and operating without their active participation.