Bluetooth Geo-Fence for Elderly and Patient Care

Most countries are experiencing demographic transition as their population is ageing while the life expectancy is rising. Elderly care-giving, especially for the ones with dementia, has become a more common need in society. It may involve the heavy support of family, relatives and friends. In most cases of early-stage dementia, the care-giving is usually provided at home by a spouse, adult children or close relatives. Home-based care may entail emotional costs as well as economic costs because the caregivers have to spend most of their time with the person who is taken care of. They are often subject to depression and anxiety. Alzheimer's disease contributes to most of cases of dementia and one of the initial symptoms of Alzheimer's is short-term memory loss. A common problem that the caregivers often experience is the patient unknowingly disappearing from home. This project addresses this particular problem and helps mitigate depression and anxiety. The project creates a system which consists of a Bluetooth receiver capable of receiving signals within a range of 20 to 30 meters, a set of small Bluetooth transmitters, a back-end cloud infrastructure, and a mobile application. The system operates by establishing a virtual fence around the area. When the patient, who must carry one or more registered Bluetooth transmitters, leaves the perimeter of the area, the Bluetooth receiver will detect signal loss from the transmitter and hence the person disappearing from the area. It will emit an audible warning sound and notify, through the cloud, the user of the mobile application installed in their smartphone. A notification SMS can be optionally sent from the receiver to the registered phone numbers. The caregiver using the mobile phone can be notified and be able to deal with the situation promptly before the patient would have travelled too far from the controlled area.