In detail, the main featuring objectives for the system are:
- Identify key symptoms and physical signs to promptly detect the main causes of decompensation and identify the habits, tasks or activities which promote health and prevent diseases on the aged affected by multiple chronic conditions;
- Implement a robust and auto‐configurable home health care system that:
- is efficiently manageable at large scale and suitable for long‐term monitoring;
- is easily expandable;
- integrates currently deployed equipment and standards, and in the end results in a commercially viable solution.
- Develop an intelligent device (Tricorder), linked to the home system, which integrates the most relevant sensors for monitoring of common chronic conditions;
- Produce a comfortable garment linked to a mobile system (smart phone);
- Embed in the garment, enhanced fall, balance and mobility sensing and reporting;
- Monitor for fall risk by determining suitable fall risk criteria for fall prevention;
- Complete the implementation of a distributed, adaptable and scalable monitoring infrastructure (based upon Observation Patterns) to allow for the continuous acquisition of the users’ sensors data by multiple entities simultaneously (the elder’s doctors and caretakers);
- Implement a caretaker site/server able to process data collected from mobile and home sensors so as to generate, by using data‐mining techniques, levels of risk, which would switch on preventive actions, mainly education/training;
- Build a set of extensive test beds through iterative refinement and perform extensive trials;
Objectives
eCAALYX’s objectives can be summarised as follows:
- Health monitoring of older and elderly persons with multiple chronic conditions, at home and on the move (the original CAALYX did not cover the health monitoring and management of older people with comorbidity).
- Improve the quality of life of elderly persons by increasing their freedom and safety. This is achieved by promptly detecting and controlling any decompensation episodes, so that their independent life at home can be extended and their hospitalisation or admission in nursing homes are avoided for longer periods. Besides improving the elderly person’s quality of life, this approach will also result in various cost reductions and in relieving some of the growing burden on acute care/healthcare systems.
- Prevent deterioration of the patient condition by providing continuous support, guidance, and relevant health education (the original CAALYX did not have such strong home-based components for the delivery of education on leading a healthy lifestyle).
- Achieve all of the above goals by providing a solution that is commercially viable, acceptable by all users/stakeholders, reliable, long-term, flexible, scalable, and virtually maintenance-free in non-technical environments, thus suitable for real-world deployment.
Expected results and impact
As a result, the project will provide a distributed and scalable system to allow monitoring of elders by multiple professionals simultaneously (elder’s doctors and caretakers) and will enable the provision of meaningful coordinated actions under the concept of a health agenda for prevention and self‐management of their multiple chronic conditions. It will be formed by the home and mobile monitoring systems, their associated health, mobility and location sensors and the caretaker site.
Contact
Margarita Hospedales
E.: mhospedales@cetemmsa.com
T.: +34 937 419 100
