Handrail IoT sensor for precision healthcare of elderly people in smart homes

With an eye toward the reality that elderly persons face declining cognitive and physical capabilities as they advance in years, this paper proposes a handrail-shaped Internet of Things (IoT) sensor as a new type of sensing system to watch over seniors as they go about their daily lives. The system detects changes in mobility using movement velocity information and the degree of dependence the subject develops in relation to the handrail-IoT sensors. Herein, we describe a field experiment of our handrail sensor system that was installed in the home of an 88-year-old female test subject. The results show that the system worked well and unobtrusively in an actual home environment and could monitor behavioral changes over a long time period, thereby indicating that it can be used to detect abnormal statuses of other elderly residents via individualizing long-term monitoring programs.