Development of Internet Based Remote Health and Activity Monitoring Systems for the Elders

In this paper, we practice an Internet-based remote health and activity of daily living (ADL) monitoring system for the elders using the integrated medical mechatronics techniques. This system consists of the main controller, portable remote controller, host computer, intelligent monitoring application program, emergent phone call software module, voice notification module, real time video delivery, web services, and so on. The proposed system is responsible for the remote care with the elders who are living alone. In this work, the remote care components of data acquisition, voice dialing, video grabbing, status monitoring, voice notification, home security, appliance control and web services are all designed and constructed based on the Internet platform. Especially, the client-server architecture is used to integrate the hardware and software components. Therefore, this system can be used in the rapid aging society. The family and the social service related department or agencies are able to take more attentions to the elder person who is living alone via the Internet. The prototype of this system had been accomplished and initially tested in laboratory. Finally, a demonstration board that simulates the operations of security alarming, appliance control, and data acquisition are also developed to test this system. The results show that the designed purposes can be achieved.