Finger movement based attender calling system for ICU patient management and rehabilitation

There is a need of smart attender calling system for efficient patient care especially for those who are unable to communicate with the health caregiver by natural means (vocal communication or through mobility; a common problem in intensive care unit (ICU)). Keeping the aforesaid perspective in mind, here we have developed a hand finger movement based attender calling system which is portable and wearable. The device is prepared by assembling a flex sensor on hand glove platform corresponding to its `fore finger' position. Finger movement of the patient leads to flexion induced variation in output voltage. The circuit consists of a voltage comparator that compares the aforesaid output with respect to a preset voltage input obtained from a potentiometer (10 kΩ). A comparative voltage ratio of magnitude above 1 enables the comparator to pass an electric signal to an APR9600 voice module located in remote place. This signal plays a prerecorded message from APR9600 module to alert the concerned persons about patient's need. The sensitivity of the setup can be adjusted by changing preset voltage of potentiometer as per the requirement of the patient. It is believed that the aforesaid system could be useful for ICU patient management and rehabilitation of vocally impaired person.