A portable electronic system for health monitoring of elderly people

Elderly people are increasing as a percentage of the population in Ecuador and all over the world. According to population projections, Ecuador will have aged a 12% more than the current index by 2050. Thus, the application of technology to provide remote monitoring and healthcare services at home would reduce the high demand that hospitals currently experience. Under these assumptions, this paper describes the implementation of a prototype to monitor the health status of elderly people. The system collects data from different biological variables of the human body such as temperature, blood oxygen level, heart rate, body position, and even electrocardiogram signals. This propotype also uses mobile communication (i.e., GSM/GPRS) to send alerts and concentrate data at a Web server. That server might generate electronic health records in order to assist distant doctors. The performance of the system was analysed according to its reliability, average sampling rate at each sensor, and message latency through the mobile network. With this proposal, we look for a significant improvement in the quality of life of elderly people by preventing possible emergencies that may cause the death of patients.