Keep elderly safe at home with home monitoring and remote communication

The challenge

Providing a user-friendly solution that will keep elderly persons safe while continue living at home

As the world’s population is aging and the elderly population is growing in size, the need for digital services supporting elderly to live on their own is increasing. Already today there are tools available, but many are too complex to handle and not put in the context of communication with elderly people. Elderly people need to be included in the digital agenda and allowed to be living at home as long as they want.

Many solution providers struggle to put together solutions specifically targeted for elderly care as majority of existing products and services are either built for Enterprise collaboration, or built on monolithic software that will not provide a user-friendly solution to elderly.

The solution

Integrating voice & video communication with existing alarm or healthcare sensor platform

Solution providers in the telehealth and telecare market have already implemented numerous sensors, such as fall and bed sensors, that trigger alarm events.

Unfortunately, the only real-time communications event corresponding to the alarm is the ability to call a telecare device and communicate with the elderly through that device.

Today there are many use cases including voice and video communications that can be implemented as a complement to an alarm or healthcare sensor platform, to improve the situation for elderly persons. The caretaker’s home can be equipped with cameras, sensors, speakers and telecare devices upon choice. Caregivers, alarm agents and relatives can monitor and communicate with the elderly person via the cameras and speakers in the person’s living.

Elderly home monitoring by video surveillance at day and night

Instead of waking up a patient in the middle of the night, a remote video stream can be connected from an IR capable camera based upon a time or alarm event. A motion detection or a fall sensor alarm can automatically set up a video stream from a video camera in the elderly person’s living, to an alarm center or a mobile device.

This will allow the caregiver to respond quickly to events and secure a context-based communication with the caretaker.

Remote voice communication from anywhere in the caretaker’s living via intercom speakers

Intercom speakers can be included to ensure voice communication based on alarm events from sensors, or manually triggered alarms by the caretaker.

In many existing solutions there is one telecare unit centrally placed in the elderly person’s home. The alarm center can call into the telecare device and speak to the person through that device only.

A digital solution opens up for new possibilities. For example, a few full duplex speakerphones with bidirectional microphones and HD speakers can be placed in the elderly person’s home. Such a solution will secure excellent communication between the current alarm center and the elderly person from anywhere in the person’s living.

Communication with relatives and additional sound services for elderly persons with extra needs

The speakerphones can also let whitelisted persons, such as relatives, make phone calls into the elderly person’s living with great voice quality.

Additional sound services can further secure the living for persons who need extra care. Voice prompts can be played for the elderly based upon events such as “time for dinner” or during an emergency situation.

Summary

By using the iotcomms.io communications platform you can build a modern solution that will keep elderly safe at home. Our platform is built with strongest possible security in mind – each participant is authenticated and the communication is encrypted. It supports smooth integration with existing alarm or healthcare sensor platform by exposure of functionality via common APIs. Examples of how you can use our APIs includes: