Development of a shoe-based dementia patient tracking and rescue system

The proportion of elderly people in the global population is rapidly increasing as a result of both low birth rates and advances in medical technology. Since September 1993, Taiwan has officially become an aging society. It is predicted that, by 2018, the proportion of people aged 65 years and above will exceed 14%, making Taiwan an aged society according to WHO definition. Because of the growing elderly population, the incidence of dementia has risen year by year.

There is no permanent treatment for most types of dementia. The appearance of patients with dementia is the same as that of the general public, however, abnormal behaviors such as the loss of patience result in a heavy burden on the patients themselves, their families and the society. In order to solve the above problems, this project proposes a shoe-based elderly tracking and rescue system. This system includes the shoes, gateway and cloud platform.

Shoes include GPS receiver, micro-controller and long distance RF module, the real-time location. Families and caregivers can trace real-time and historical information such as the patient's location through the GSM to avoid the loss of elderly people. Through the integration of shoes, gateways and platforms, the chances of losing patients will be reduced while the stress of family members will be reduced.

Keywords: Dementia patient tracker, GSM, RF transmitter and receiver, Arduino UNO.