Tallahassee Community College

             In today’s world, we continue to see a gradual increase in the number of elders that are in our world and as people grow older, the need for help escalates. For example, senior citizens usually need assistance to get around and be mobile, the help to remember when and which prescribed medicine to take, and other additional ways to make sure they are completing the necessary steps to continue a healthy life. Also, there are a great number of elders that stay at home alone, leaving them to be responsible for all daily tasks that have to be completed. “Older patients have unique needs” stated by Lori Parham the state director for Association for the Advancement of Retired Persons in Florida (AARP), explains how difficult life can be for a lot of elders and leaving elderly individuals to live alone can decrease the chance of a healthy lifestyle. If an elder is home alone, how can emergency officials be alerted if the elder were to fall, or suddenly catch a stroke? It has been shown through studies that elders living alone usually don’t have a telephone making them unable to contact anyone during an emergency. Another problem with elders is the fact on how easily a task can slip their mind or just drawing a blank and forgetting. This is caused by Alzheimer’s disease which infects 52 million people just in the United States alone. The most frequent reason for elders not taking their medicine is because the elder forgot to take the medication. Even though forgetting to take a prescription can be life threatening, this is a serious problem for elders in our society today and an answer must be found soon.

             Journalist Lisa Greene of the St. Petersburg Times recently published an article concerning limited specialists for elderly care. In her article “For Elderly Care, too Few Specialists,” Green exemplifies the demand for elderly care, assistance and attention. Included is an interview with Dr. John Murphy of Rhode Island, who stated “Right now, our practice has a three to six month wait to get a new patient into the practice.” Murphy, president of the American Geriatrics Society realizes and recognizes there is a short supply of doctors, specialists and people in general who lack the interest in the study of Geriatrics and caring for the elderly. Unfortunately, that shortage is expected to grow. Studies have shown that between 2005 and 2030, the number of Americans who are 65 or older will nearly double. According to a recent report released last year in 2008 by the Institute of Medicine, the United States alone will need about 36,000 doctors who specialize in caring for the elderly. Not to mention, students who often finish medical school with six figure debt, know they can make more money in other specialties, and as a result the study of Geriatrics itself is becoming less attractive to inspiring medical students, leaving the question, who will take care of the elderly?

             “Existing and Emerging Healthcare Devices for Elders to Use at Home,” written by Judith Matthews states how elders really do benefit from assistive technology, and how the author predicts a huge impact on future devices to provide help for elders. The book entitled, “Journal of Aging and Health by Yuri Jang,” describes the health-related quality of life in community-dwelling older Whites and African Americans. VTT Information Technology representative Timo Tuomisto, and Polar Electro Oy representative Vesa Pentikainen developed a personal health monitor prototype to obtain information about physiological condition of the person, and to assess the usability and acceptability of the monitoring concept at home. The equipment, “Personal Health Monitor” consists of a lap-top computer, temperature, and blood pressure measuring systems, scales, portable heart rate monitor, and BioMatt monitoring system. The portable heart rate monitor is supplied with an accelerator sensor and a facility to measure extraordinary ECG-samples. The system had been in experimental use among fourteen healthy middle-aged men with no know serious diseases, and with no specific sports activities. Each person measured their temperature, blood pressure, and weight daily or twice a day, while the experimental period only lasted for two months. Further analysis work was performed with data, with main interest in correlations, long term trends, and possible weekly periods reflecting the habits of the subject. The feasibility of the concept was indeed tested with elderly people, who partially can take care of themselves, the nursing staff being the users of the measurement system. In 1997, the cornerstone for the success of the personal follow-up was the feedback offered by the system. At the time, the system presented the time history data to the users, but it did not make any assessments. This team of engineers believed that there was a boom among individuals to follow up and maintain their own health. Their ultimate goal was to develop a system which would facilitate the monitoring of one’s physical condition over months, years, and decades. 

             The NCT sub-technology area (technical application) that our team selected was Medical Devices and Equipment under the choice for Living Systems. To answer Task One’s question, we suggest the elderly to take care of themselves. Since the shortage for care, assistance, and help for the elderly and senior citizens are drastically increasing along with that specific age group population, our team proposes a medical device for personal and convenient around the clock care, whether if an individual is living with companions or even living alone.

             A medical device is an object which is useful for diagnostic or therapeutic purposes. Our plan is to use our product to provide all elders with the help of completing the necessary tasks to maintain a potent and healthy style of living. The device our team presents enables that specific age group to check their blood pressure, heart rate/pulse, and temperature. This product enables the individual to set reminders, read health suggestions and even if necessary alert emergency officials of a life threatening situation. By using a medical device that monitors’ an elders vitals all day, it can keep a 24 hour watch on the customer without anyone being physically there. Our idea was to keep tabs of the customer at all times because at one moment a person’s blood pressure can increase to unwanted numbers maybe causing the customer to have a stroke. As mentioned in Task One, Dr. Johns Murphy talks about how there is a waiting list to his facility; therefore limiting the attention and care for individuals in their most important time of need. The product aims to fill in that vacancy, so that its customers can have convenient and personal around-the-clock monitoring. Our product will also solve the problem of elders forgetting to take their medicine by sounding an alarm when it is time to take their medication. The alarm will sound off from the main port and simultaneously display a reminder on the television set, displaying the amount and which medication to take. According to Nielsen Media Research, people over the age of 65 and up watch about 196 hours of television per month. Using this data we thought to create our product so that it would be connected to a television monitor and a convenient watch for any duties that have to be done outside of their home. The digital watch will ordinarily tell time, but with a push of a button, the screen will display their current blood pressure, heart rate, temperature, and clock-down to the next time appointed for their medication.

             The elderly individual will have an arm band around their arm collecting and measuring the data when applied. The arm band will relay that information to the bottom of their television monitor upon their request with a push of a button on a remote. However, for the very active and out-door citizens, the armband will relay the information to its companion medical watch as well.

             If the customer is hurt, badly bruised, and need emergency officials, the main port and watch will provide an alert button for that person to press to call for help. In addition, if the main port begins to read abnormal and alarming vital signs, for a few seconds, a constant beat sound will alarm on both the television monitor and watch screen suggestions health tips that will display. For example, the customer can expect the screen to suggest them to drink a glass of water, relax and calm down. However, if repeated alarming vital signs continue, the screen will alert WARNING, and suggest the customer to alert officials, but the customer can push a button to ignore the suggestions and warnings if they confidently have the situation under control. But, if the arm band detects a fatal vital sign with the customer providing no indication of ignoring the given warning, the system itself will alert emergency officials, providing area and location with its IP address.

Task 1

Task 3

Task 2

Component 1