Development of the Elderly Healthcare Monitoring System with IoT

Abstract

Stroke is a brain attack (or infarction of a portion of the brain) caused by the sudden disturbance of blood supply to that area. In recent years, even though the number of stroke-related deaths has been decreasing in Korea, the incidence of stroke is increasing, and the incidence increase with age. The chances of surviving from an acute and sudden infarction are much higher if the elderly people get emergency medical assistance within a few hours of occurrence. Elderly health monitoring and emergency alert system are mentioned as one of the main application areas of pervasive computing and biomedical applications. Moreover, a proactive elderly health monitoring system involves active capture of brain and body movement signals, signal analysis, communication, detection and warning processes. The primary objective of this research will be concerned itself with ambient assisted living issues for the successful detection and generation of alarms in cases of stroke onset, which will allow the timely delivery of medical assistance, to mitigate the long-term effects of these attacks.

Full text

Development of the Elderly Healthcare
Monitoring System with IoT
Se Jin Park, Murali Subramaniyam, Seoung Eun Kim,
Seunghee Hong, Joo Hyeong Lee, Chan Min Jo and Youngseob Seo
Abstract Stroke is a brain attack (or infarction of a portion of the brain) caused by
the sudden disturbance of blood supply to that area. In recent years, even though the
number of stroke-related deaths has been decreasing in Korea, the incidence of
stroke is increasing, and the incidence increase with age. The chances of surviving
from an acute and sudden infarction are much higher if the elderly people get
emergency medical assistance within a few hours of occurrence. Elderly health
monitoring and emergency alert system are mentioned as one of the main
S.J. Park (&)M. Subramaniyam S.E. Kim S. Hong J.H. Lee C.M. Jo Y. Seo
Center for Medical Metrology, Korea Research Institute of Standards
and Science (KRISS), 267 Gajeong-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, Korea
e-mail: sjpark@kriss.re.kr
M. Subramaniyam
e-mail: murali.subramaniyam@gmail.com
S.E. Kim
e-mail: yseo@kriss.re.kr
S. Hong
e-mail: seung-H@kriss.re.kr
J.H. Lee
e-mail: havocangel@kriss.re.kr
C.M. Jo
e-mail: jochanmin@kriss.re.kr
Y. Seo
e-mail: najoohyoung@kriss.re.kr
S.J. Park M. Subramaniyam S.E. Kim S. Hong J.H. Lee C.M. Jo Y. Seo
Knowledge Converged Super Brain (KSB) Research Department,
Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI),
Yuseong-gu, 218, Gajeong-ro, Daejeon, Korea
Y. Seo
Department of Medical Physics, University of Science and Technology,
267 Gajeong-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, Korea
©Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017
V.G. Duffy and N. Lightner (eds.), Advances in Human Factors
and Ergonomics in Healthcare, Advances in Intelligent Systems
and Computing 482, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-41652-6_29
309

application areas of pervasive computing and biomedical applications. Moreover, a
proactive elderly health monitoring system involves active capture of brain and
body movement signals, signal analysis, communication, detection and warning
processes. The primary objective of this research will be concerned itself with
ambient assisted living issues for the successful detection and generation of alarms
in cases of stroke onset, which will allow the timely delivery of medical assistance,
to mitigate the long-term effects of these attacks.
Keywords Aging Elderly healthcare monitoring system Internet of things 
Stroke Cerebral infarction
1 Introduction
Stroke is a brain attack (or infarction of a portion of the brain) caused by the sudden
disturbance of blood supply to that area [1]. In recent years, even though the
number of stroke-related deaths has been decreasing in Korea, the incidence of
stroke is increasing, and the incidence increase with age [2]. Stroke is still the
leading cause of death in Korea [3]. Stroke is an important health burden in Korea
as well as worldwide. The stroke population as well as global population is aging
[4]. On average, every 5 min stroke attacks someone in Korea [1]. A patient suf-
fering from the onset of a stroke needs a trained care assistant close by to recognize
the symptoms; in many stroke situations, an isolated individual would be unable to
request help alone. The chances of surviving from an acute and sudden infarction
(i.e., stroke) are much higher if the elderly people get emergency medical assistance
within a few hours of occurrence. Wireless health monitoring is the most interesting
research application field for wearable electronics. Smart healthcare monitoring
using IoT (Internet of Things) is the integration of smart computing and remote
health monitoring. It can be considered as the major application field of remote
computing technologies for rapid communication between patients and healthcare
professionals. Elderly healthcare monitoring and emergency alert system are
mentioned as one of the main application areas of pervasive computing and
biomedical applications. The primary objective of this research will be concerned
itself with ambient assisted living issues for the successful detection and generation
of alarms in cases of stroke onset, which will allow the timely delivery of medical
assistance, to mitigate the long-term effects of these attacks. This paper is organized
to give some of the background information related to the development of the
elderly healthcare monitoring system with IoT.
310 S.J. Park et al.

2 Background
2.1 Aging in Korea
Korea is one of the most rapidly aging countries in the world, people over 65 years
old will account for 38.2 % of Korea’s population in 2050. Aging results from
increasing longevity, and most importantly, declining fertility [5]. The life expec-
tancy of males is expected to rise from 77.2 years in 2010 to 83.4 years in 2040.
The life expectancy of females is expected to increase from 84.1 years in 2010 to
88.2 years in 2040. Unless Korea responds adequately to the decline in the
working-age population, it is certain that the country will witness a slowdown in its
economic growth [6]. As stated by the Korea’s National health insurance company,
the elderly are expected to consume 65.4 % of total health care expenses in 2030,
which is huge comparing with the current state (37.9 % as of 2015). In Korea, the
elderly dependency ratio is projected to increase. By 2060, the elderly dependency
ratio is expected to exceed 80 % (about 20 % as of 2015), i.e., the number of
“elderly dependents”will increase [7]. The elderly Koreans are more likely to live
alone and the proportion of single person households is expected to increase further.
As of 2010, the proportion of single person household was 34.2 % and it is
expected to increase to 38 % by 2035 (Fig. 1).
Fig. 1 Types of households for elderly aged 65 and over
Development of the Elderly Healthcare Monitoring System with IoT 311

2.2 Elderly Smart Healthcare Monitoring System
In this 21st century, technology has made human lives very easy and advanced.
With the increasing aging population day by day, demand is increasing for smart
healthcare systems to encounter the various healthcare related incidents because the
aging population is much more prone to living alone than before and they are more
likely to have an accidental death [8]. The conventional and old health monitoring
system comprises of individual human health parameter sensors to measure one
single health parameter while each was connected to a data collection device to
make a database for healthcare record, which is time-consuming and not suitable for
tracking down the emergency. Recent internet based technology developments have
allowed the successful integration of several sensors equipped with one wearable
healthcare system which can be wearable in the human body, or can be transported
with the elderly patient to any remote place where emergency health care can be
required. The newer internet based wearable healthcare monitoring systems have
been developed for emergency and elderly health care, thus making the smart health
monitoring very simple, portable and faster communication based [9–12].
Programmable emergency alarms are also integrated into the healthcare monitoring
systems, which indicate emergencies to notify healthcare personnel for help.
2.3 IoT-Based Elderly Smart Healthcare Monitoring System
IoT-based smart healthcare systems depend on the vital definition of the IoT as a
network of wearable smart devices, which connect with each other to measure the
parameters, interpret the results and make the emergency alert to notify the medical
personnel. IoT devices can be utilized for operating on a remote basis for smart
health monitoring and emergency notification systems. For the elderly, smart
healthcare monitoring systems are objectively designed to get the immediate
measurements required to track down several health parameters in an urgent situ-
ation and in a cost effective way. In the smart elderly healthcare monitoring sys-
tems, several parameters like systolic and diastolic blood pressure, body
temperature, pulse rate, heart rate, important muscle activity, blood sugar level
testing, blood oxygen content(SPO
2
), human brain activity, motion tracking etc. are
all very important to track down the healthcare status [13–15]. Specialized sensors
for health monitoring can also be equipped with a wearable device within living
spaces/rooms/homes of elderly to monitor the health and emergency of senior
citizens. Sensor mobile gateway integrated with healthcare sensor can ideally be
presented on a small, wearable and portable device, suitable for daily and contin-
uous use, such as a smartphone or PDA (personal digital assistant) [16–19].
Therefore, IoT-based systems are radically reducing the costs and improving health
by increasing the availability and quality of care [20–23].
312 S.J. Park et al.

2.4 Application Areas for IoT-Based Elderly Smart
Healthcare Monitoring System
A wide variety of application for IoT-based elderly smart healthcare monitoring
system is possible. For example, smart car, smart home, smart bed, etc., In the
Smart car, there have been numerous researches undertaken. Researchers at
Nottingham Trent University [24] are working on new kind of car seats that could
measure vital signs such as ECG of the driver to prevent accidents caused by drivers
falling asleep. The sensor system can be used to detect heart signals, which indicate
a driver is beginning to lose alertness and trigger a warning to pull over. In another
study [25], the smart seat belt (Harken device) have been developed to sense heart
rate. The Harken device is an innovative solution because it measures both variables
on a scenario affected by vibrations and user movements, using intelligent materials
embedded in the seat cover and the seat belt. The sensor system can be used to
detect heart signals, which indicate a driver is beginning to lose alertness and trigger
a warning to pull over. Most recently [26], Ford’s European Research and
Innovation Centre in Aachen, Germany is working on a car seat that can detect
heart attacks. The device uses six embedded sensors to monitor heart activity. The
system will then notify the necessary authorities in an emergency. Faurecia’s
concept Active Wellness seat has built-in biometric sensors to analyze a driver’s
heart rhythms and breathing patterns.
3 Conclusion
In this study, we presented some of the background information related to the
development of the elderly healthcare monitoring system with IoT. As stated, the
primary objective of this research will be concerned itself with the development of
ambient assisted elderly healthcare monitoring system with IoT. The developing
system can successfully detect and generate alarms in case of stroke onset, which
will allow the timely delivery of medical assistance, to mitigate the long-term
effects of these attacks. With the use of IoT, wearable healthcare devices collect and
share information effectively in a database system with patient and medical per-
sonnel to make it feasible to make a faster communication and decision about the
emergency situation much more accurately. IoT offers bigger promise in the field of
healthcare and rehabilitation, where its smart remote technologies are already going
to be applied to improve access to care, increase the immediateness of care and
most importantly accuracy of the care.
Acknowledgments This work was supported by the National Research Council of Science &
Technology (NST) grant by the Korea government (MSIP) (No. CRC-15-05-ETRI).
Development of the Elderly Healthcare Monitoring System with IoT 313

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