The mobile phone as a platform for assisting the independent living ...

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• Remote support for family carers: includes all kinds of telecommunication-basedactivities supporting family carers• Advanced services using video telephony: include remote monitoring and videobasedalarm services• TelemedicineAlarm systems play a very important role in Smart Home applications. However, thesystems, existing so far, are very often too complicated or not reliable enough. The keyissue is the setting off of alarms. If, for instance, persons have an accident (fall, injury), afire breaks out or a person suddenly becomes unconscious, then there is normally notime or possibility to operate a telephone or even an alarm button on their wrist oraround their neck. Although there were many alarm systems on the market and severalresearch projects have looked into this particular issue exist, there is still a largeknowledge gap as to how persons react in a dramatic situation, be it panic or a collapseor simply because they are confused or have memory problems (forget that they arewearing an alarm button).Probably the best solutions to overcome these problems are passive systems. Passivemeans an automatic control of vital functions (e.g. pulse, blood pressure, oxygensaturation), their evaluation and an automatic alarm being set off when the values of thevital parameters exceed predefined limits. The reliability of the alarm being set off can bedramatically increased when several different observations and decisions are combined.Among the measurement of vital parameters as described above, the person’s activity(leaving and entering rooms, using water, electric light, TV and radio and many more)can give important additional information.In order to avoid false alarms the receiver of the alarm (e.g. call centre or relatives) sendsback a signal to the user for instance by telephone or via a message that appears on thealarm module worn on the wrist or around the neck. In the case of a false alarm, the usercan answer the phone or press the button of the module indicating that no help isneeded thus avoiding unnecessary attendance. If, on the other hand, the user does notreact, it can be assumed that the alarm is serious.One huge problem in healthcare is wandering and way finding. There are systems todetect where a client leaves the house where this would be inappropriate or dangerousfor the client. These systems consist of magnetic contacts or pressure mats at/near halldoor connected to local area (family) paging. The system, of course, does not restrictegress, but merely alerts a carer that the client has left. Similarly, for way finding (at night)9
lighting strips and passive infra-red light switches can assist and reduce the likelihood ofa fall or disorientation around the house at night.An area that receives an increasing amount of interest is tele-monitoring or personalhealth monitoring is based on the idea that persons can monitor themselves in theirhome using medical devices. Health care monitoring at home enables continuousmeasuring of physiological parameters. It is possible to embed sensors in different placesor objects at home (e.g. in the furniture, electrical appliances), or to make them wearableby integrating them into clothing "Smart Shirt" or small apparel items such as watchesand jewellery. By combining these wearable sensors with measurement devicesembedded in home surroundings, advanced health monitoring may be achieved.Recording of physiological and psychological variables in real-life conditions could beespecially useful in management of chronic disorders or health problems; e.g. for highblood pressure, diabetes, anorexia nervosa, chronic pain, or severe obesity. Telemonitoringcould also be used to provide feedback about someone’s health in the formof behavioural feedback in order to prevent diseases.Obviously tele-monitoring has many advantages for both, the patient and the medicalinstitutions. The patient can stay at home and does not have the inconvenience,associated with a visit of the doctor or in the hospital, and the medical institution savestime because there is no need for spending time with routine work and in the hospitalenormous costs for the bed and the care of the medical staff can be saved. In severaltele-monitoring applications the data are not directly transmitted to the medicalinstitutions but to a kind of ‘call centre’, which performs a first data evaluation.2.5 Related projectsSeveral projects have introduced smart home technologies for aging people in the UnitedStates, Europe and Asia. The SmartBo project [50] in Sweden, for example, includes atwo-room ground floor demonstration apartment containing technology for elders withmobility impairments and cognitive disabilities, such as dementia and developmentaldisability. Devices and sensors control lighting, windows, doors, locks, water outlets,electrical power, stove, as well as visual and tactile signalling devices, speech synthesizers,and Braille displays.The PROSAFE project [51] in France examines devices and sensors that identifyabnormal behaviour that can be interpreted as an accident and collect representative dataon patients' nocturnal and daily activity. The experimental room has been designed toaccommodate patients with Alzheimer’s disease. It is equipped with a set of infraredmotion sensors connected to either a wireless or wired network.10
Page 1: ATHENS UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS AND
Page 5 and 6: AbstractMobile phones or Personal D
Page 7 and 8: Chapter 7: Implementation of an app
Page 9 and 10: List of TablesTable 1: Advantages a
Page 11 and 12: suffering from memory and orientati
Page 13 and 14: Chapter 2Smart Homes2.1 Smart Homes
Page 15 and 16: • Automate specific tasks that a
Page 17: Fig. 1: A smart home solution 1It i
Page 21 and 22: The Amigo project [10] is a joint e
Page 23 and 24: However, inside a building, that un
Page 25 and 26: with co-ordinates in the form of la
Page 27 and 28: At last, the utilized technology mu
Page 29 and 30: In this work we concentrate on achi
Page 31 and 32: In order to estimate the user locat
Page 33 and 34: 4.2.1 Cell-based methodsCell-based
Page 35 and 36: correlation between distance and si
Page 37 and 38: thus increasing the storage and mem
Page 39 and 40: egions. Examining images based on t
Page 41 and 42: Chapter 6Implementation of an indoo
Page 43 and 44: 6.3 Experimental environment, hardw
Page 45 and 46: Fig. 10: The database table that st
Page 47 and 48: Fig.12: The matching stageThe query
Page 49 and 50: 6.6 Future workIn this section we p
Page 51 and 52: According to the Eye Diseases Preva
Page 53 and 54: Fig. 14: Use of image processing te
Page 55 and 56: list, printing the best match as th
Page 57 and 58: Chapter 8Conclusion8.1 ConclusionMo
Page 59 and 60: [13] Gilles Virone, Norbert Noury,
Page 61 and 62: [40] Andrew M. Ladd, Kostas E. Bekr
Page 63: [65] X. Chen and A.L. Yuille, “A

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