Activity Amount Calculation System for Elderly Monitoring
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing systems struggle to accurately monitor changes in activity levels of elderly individuals living alone, leading to uncertainty about their health condition and a significant burden on family members, as they require frequent visits or operations from the elderly person.
Innovation Solution
An activity amount calculation system equipped with detection units that track residents as they pass through doorways, calculating activity amounts based on preset relationships between detection units and reference activity amounts, allowing for precise monitoring of activity changes without requiring the elderly person to operate devices or perform specific actions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If emergency report devices or health monitoring devices are installed in the elderly person's dwelling, then the family can be informed of the elderly person's health condition, but the elderly person needs to operate the device which creates a burden on the elderly person
Solution Approach 1:
The system automatically detects the elderly person's activities using sensors and calculates activity amounts without requiring any operation from the elderly person. The detection units autonomously monitor movements between rooms, and the calculation unit automatically computes activity levels, eliminating the need for the elderly person to interact with the device while maintaining reliable health monitoring.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces manual operation of emergency report devices with automatic sensor-based detection systems. Instead of requiring the elderly person to press buttons or activate devices mechanically, the system uses detection units to automatically sense and record activities, substituting mechanical interaction with automated electronic detection and calculation.
2Loss of information
If lifestyle behavior data is stored and checked, then the elderly person's behaviors can be monitored, but changes in activity amount cannot be grasped making it difficult to assess health condition changes
Solution Approach 1:
The system transitions from simply storing qualitative lifestyle behavior data to calculating and tracking quantitative activity amount parameters. By computing specific metrics such as total activity amounts, average activity amounts, and activity amount changes over time, the system enables precise detection of health condition changes while retaining comprehensive behavior information.
Solution Approach 2:
The system establishes a feedback mechanism that continuously calculates activity amounts based on detection unit data and compares them against baseline values. When activity amount changes exceed predetermined thresholds, the system generates notifications to inform relevant parties of potential health issues, creating a closed-loop monitoring system that actively responds to detected changes.
3Measurement precision
If authentication terminals are used to detect walking speed, then walking speed changes can be grasped, but the elderly person needs to operate authentication terminals creating a burden
Solution Approach 1:
The system automatically detects the elderly person's movements and calculates walking speeds without requiring the elderly person to operate authentication terminals. Detection units positioned in doorways autonomously sense passage and compute movement metrics, eliminating the operational burden while maintaining precise walking speed measurement capability.
4Measurement precision
If detection units are installed in multiple rooms, then activity amounts can be calculated precisely, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system divides the monitoring function into multiple independent detection units positioned in different rooms, each capable of detecting passage independently. This segmentation allows precise activity amount calculation by combining data from multiple locations while maintaining modular simplicity, where each detection unit operates autonomously and contributes to the overall calculation without requiring complex inter-unit coordination.
Data Source
AI summary
An activity amount calculation system includes a plurality of detection units and an activity amount calculation device. The plurality of detection units detect a resident and output detection signals when the resident passes through doorways of a plurality of rooms. The calculation device includes a calculation unit and a summation unit. Upon detection of the resident by the detection units, the calculation unit calculates an activity amount of the resident based on relationships between detection units and reference activity amounts. The summation unit repeatedly calculates a total activity amount of the resident in a predetermined period by summing activity amounts calculated by the calculation unit.