IoT system to monitor health conditions of elderly

Abstract

Elderly people face different old-age-related diseases where some of such diseases transform into chronic diseases. However, without assistance, aged persons are helpless. Even informing someone about their health issues is a challenge for them. In developing countries new technologies, including the internet of things, are being used to monitor old adults’ health and activities, thus enabling them to live safely and independently at home as they age. This study aimed at designing and prototyping a system intended to help improve the health of elderly people in Sub-Saharan Africa. This can be achieved by providing a relatively easy way to monitor the health of elderly people remotely and provide vital signs information of elderly people periodically with automatic alerts in case of emergency issues and tracking the location of elderly people. Therefore, architecture for context awareness and IoT- based systems is proposed to improve the health monitoring of elderly people in Africa and thus improve the quality of life of elderly people. The system uses a heartbeat sensor, Temperature sensor, and GPS Module to collect data with Arduino Uno as Microcontroller. The collected data is sent to the cloud using GSM Module. The cloud data is stored, processed, analyzed, and then sends to the caregiver and Doctor. This system will enhance the quality of life for elderly people by enabling them to get real-time health information and medication from any location. Additionally, it will enable healthcare practitioners to remotely monitor them.