Telemetric activity monitoring as an indicator of long-term changes in health and well-being of older people

Background: Supporting independent living for older people is essential not only for the older people themselves, but also for the social and health care sectors. For this reason, there exists a need for unobtrusive telecare and telehealth solutions enabling independent living of the older adults. In this study, we demonstrate how telemetric activity monitoring offers a promising tool for long term monitoring to detect changes in the health status and over-all well-being of older people.

Methods: A telemetric activity monitoring system integrated with an intelligent social alarm system was used to monitor circadian activity rhythm of elderly nursing home residents (n=16, mean age 85.1 years, range 58-97) for several months. Changes in the activity rhythm were compared with clinical observations of health status of the subjects. The results are given as case reports.

Results: The results suggest an association between the changes in the actual health status and the circadian activity rhythm.

Conclusion: Telemetric activity monitoring offers a practical tool for long term monitoring to detect changes in health status in older adults in their normal environments.