Designing batteryless wearables for hospitalized older people

Abstract

Older people have expressed a clear desire for unobtrusive wearable monitoring devices. Emerging batteryless sensor technologies such as sensor enabled RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) create new opportunities for building unobtrusive wearables for older people. This study aims to: i) uncover user perceptions and acceptability of a batteryless wearable sensor concept for hospitalized older people; and ii) present the construction of a new textile integrated wearable sensor incorporating user feedback. We recruited 40 older people (age: 81.0 ± 7.0 years) to wear our initial sensor prototype and used two modified versions of validated questionnaires to evaluate user perceptions and acceptability. Our results showed: i) allowing older people to experience the system created the opportunity for them to develop confidence and trust in the sensing technology, even when they were initially anxious and skeptical: and ii) the first design prototype should ideally be modified to reduce its visibility. To this end, we built a new wearable sensor design.