Altcare: Safe living for elderly people

Elderly people are the most growing segment of the population. Most of the elderly people like to live an independent life at their own homes in a familiar environment. Living alone is not always safe, and often emergency situations like a fall and unconsciousness occur. We present an ambient assistant living system Altcare, based on static network video cameras. The Altcare automatically learns the common events and their location. Furthermore it detects the emergency situations happening with elderly people. In case of some emergency situations, the Altcare first confirms it with the monitored person. In case of a positive response or no response at all, the emergency situation is notified to the responsible persons, in order to get timely and effective help. Along with personal information and a short medical history of the elderly person, a patch of masked video showing the emergency event is also transmitted. The masked video on one hand maintains the privacy of the elderly people and on the other hand it helps the administrators to diagnose the problem accurately. Masked video is also helpful to provide specific initial first aid. In order to ensure timely help, the system receives acknowledgement for the sent emergency call. Some of the elderly people desire to be checked on a periodic basis. Our system gives the administrators a facility to check the state of the person at any time, which gives the elderly person a sense of safety and mental satisfaction.