Smart clothing to increase safety of people with dementia

Abstract

Human population is aging. Therefore, considerable amount of attention has to be given to the problems specific to aging. Dementia is one of such problems. There is a strong relation between dementia and gait disorders. With aging the amount of people falling during standing, walking or climbing stairs dramatically increases. Because of this, the elderly people have a greater need for care and assistance and are more likely to be admitted to a nursing home after a fall, although they would like to stay at their own home and be independent. Although a number of researchers are dealing with this problematics so from the point of the medical diagnostics, as from view of possibility of integrating fall detection device into clothing, there are still unresolved problems on the area of providing safety of people with dementia.This contribution deals with the integration of a fall detection system being supplied by printed batteries into clothing, designed with medical function in mind for safety of elderly people and patients with dementia. The first part presents a fall detection and long-term motion monitoring system and considers its power consumption. Energy consumption will be considered based on an amount of current consumed by particular parts of fall detection and long-term monitoring system. The second part gives an overview of various batteries suitable to supply the fall detection and long-term motion monitoring system integrated into clothing, while the third part presents suggestions for fall detection and long-term motion monitoring system integration into clothing.