부산대학교 도서관

A safety and life support system has been developed to ensure the safety and wellbeing of elderly patients with dementia. A wearable sensor, which is attached behind the neck of the patient's undershirt, is composed of tri-axis accelerometer, small microphone, microcontroller, and personal handy-phone (PHS) module. The wearable sensor can detect posture, activity and falling by using measured acceleration forces. The PHS module can receive the location information from the mobile phone company every 10 minutes. When the patient is in an inactive state for long time, falls, or is out of the area set by the caregiver, the wearable sensor sends the patient's location, posture, activity and environmental sounds around the patient to the server computer of the emergency situation. The server computer then automatically informs the caregiver of the emergency situation by e-mail with an attached location map and environmental sounds. The caregiver can then immediately send help or emergency support as needed.