A Sustainable, Interactive Elderly Healthcare System for Nursing Homes: An Interdisciplinary Design

Abstract

Population ageing becomes a perplexing conundrum with social and economic development. Many senior citizens are now empty nesters because the younger generation prefer to stay in metropolises for a better life. Therefore, living in a nursing home is a popular choice for the aged. This objective-oriented paper proposes a sustainable elderly healthcare system for nursing homes. The main work is the design and implementation of a new rapid and interactive assistance service. Based on cost-effective fingerprint indoor-positioning technology, the alert message that a person is at risk will be immediately sent to nearby people before professionals arrive. Warning messages are available when nearing marked areas (e.g., slippery floors). The parallel path-finding algorithm plays a significant role in finding nearby people and alerting people who approach specific areas. Furthermore, this system provides application programming interfaces to connect to health devices, such as smart bracelets, watches, and glasses. In general, the system is designed to ensure the safety of the elderly and improve management efficiency, which corresponds to present smart elderly care proposals from governments.