scholarly journals Behavior Estimation Based on Multiple Vibration Sensors for Elderly Monitoring Systems

2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 489-497
Author(s):  
Shuai Shao ◽  
Naoyuki Kubota ◽  
Kazutaka Hotta ◽  
Takuya Sawayama ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Neural Network ◽  
Elderly Care ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Monitoring Systems ◽  
Living Room ◽  
Autocorrelation Coefficient ◽  
Vibration Data ◽  
User Behaviors ◽  
Vibration Sensors ◽  
Current State

Aging has become a global social issue nowadays. We want to provide an elderly care system for older people who live alone. Based on the perspective of an informationally structured space (ISS), we have developed a monitoring system by using high-precision vibration sensors. In preliminary experiments, we observed that the autocorrelation coefficient reflected periodic human activities to a certain extent. Therefore, we propose a time delay neural network (TDNN) with autocorrelation as the input to analyze the vibration data. The system can estimate the current state of the elderly. When the system observes any abnormal situation of the elderly, the system can confirm by voice or notify the caregiver, if necessary. In the experiments, we compared the proposed method with traditional TDNNs using raw data as the input. The results demonstrated that proposed methods had performed well when using vibration sensors to measure user behaviors in the bathroom and living room.

scholarly journals China Elderly Care: A Confucian Legacy

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (5) ◽  
pp. 184-193
Author(s):  
Yutao Song
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Elderly Care ◽  
Aging Population ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Modern China ◽  
Private Institutions ◽  
Health Issues ◽  
Current State ◽  
Mental Health Issues ◽  
Inadequate Care

This paper explores the Confucian roots of elderly care expectations and how these expectations may influence the current state of the elderly and elderly care in modern China. This paper posits that the outdated expectations combined with recent urbanization trends has put unrealistic pressures on society to adequately care for a rapidly aging population. Until expectations are adjusted to reflect modern day families and realities, the elderly will continue to struggle with a sense of inadequate care, which can lead to mental health issues and feelings of isolation. Once the shackles of Confucian expectations are removed, families, governments and private institutions will have the freedom to be more creative in the way they imagine solutions for elderly care.

HOME CARE IN OUTPATIENT CARE – STATE AND DEVELOPMENT IN BULGARIA

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 571-574
Author(s):  
Ivanka Stambolova ◽  
Stefan Stambolov
Keyword(s):  
Home Care ◽  
Outpatient Care ◽  
Care Service ◽  
Elderly Care ◽  
Care Center ◽  
Elderly Person ◽  
Chronically Ill ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Legal Regulation ◽  
Health And Social Care

In outpatient care the home care, including hospices, is recognized as a model for providing quality, cost-effective and charitable care. The focus is mainly on the care that helps everyday lifeof the patient as well as the relatives, rather than on treatment, and in most cases it takes place in the patients' home. In Europe, in recent years there has been a real "boom" in home care due to demographic processes linked to increased needs for elderly care and chronically ill under the conditions of limited financial resources.In outpatient medical care in our country by means of a national framework contract there are regulated visits to the patient's home by a doctor, as well as visits by medical staff employed by him - nurse, midwife, medical assistant / paramedic / for manipulation, counseling and monitoring. At the same time there is no regulated legal activity in the Republic of Bulgaria, which is essentially the subject of home care.Since 1994 „Caritas“ has carried out the "Home Care" service, which provides a complex - health and social care for over 360 sick adults in a place where the elderly person feels the most comfortable - in their own home. „Caritas Home Care“ is provided by mobile teams of nurses and social assistants who visit the elderly at home and provide them with the necessary care according to their health and social needs.With the establishment of the first „Home Care Center“ in Lozenets region, Sofia, with the support of the PHARE ACCESS program in 2003, the Bulgarian Red Cross introduces in Bulgaria an integrated model for provision of health care and social services in the home of adults, chronically ill and people with permanent disabilities. To date, there are a number of problems in home care related to the realization of home care for patients in need in out-of-hospital settings: lack of legal regulation for home care, lack of qualified staff in outpatient care; lack of organization and structures for care; unsettled funding and the inability of the part of the population that is most in need of care to pay for it, there is no regulation to control the activity. Although home care began over 20 years ago, our country is yet to make its way to the European program called „Home care in Europe“.

Development of a Mobile Time Banking system on Blockchain (MTBB) for Community Elderly Care (Preprint)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hungyi Chen ◽  
Yuan-Chia Chu ◽  
Feipei Lai
Keyword(s):  
Care Service ◽  
Elderly Care ◽  
Banking System ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Community Services ◽  
The Other ◽  
Smartphone App ◽  
Smartphone Apps ◽  
Member Service ◽  
Blockchain Technology

BACKGROUND Time banking is a good mechanism to provide elderly care in community services with members having mutual benefits, besides social welfare and out-of-pocket fee payment mechanisms. With further integration with off-line works, mobile time banking may provide a better way, compared to traditional web access. On the other hand, blockchain technology has been long encountering difficulty in integrating with real-world economies or activities. Development of a mobile time banking system on blockchain (MTBB) may provide a realistic solution for community elderly care. Besides, the tracking mechanism from blockchain technology itself may also help track the elderly care service transaction records in order to measure better Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by United Nations (UN). OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to develop the MTBB, which enables tracking service transaction records in community elderly care through mutual helps. METHODS The MTBB was developed to empower organizations, either Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) organizations, or Non-Profit Organizations (NPOs), to issue time tokens of their proprietary token types to the members who participate in the volunteer activities organized by the organizations respectively. In the service activities, members sign in and sign out before and after the services by using a smartphone app, and then get the time tokens afterwards. Members with time tokens can then exchange time tokens for elderly care services using the same smartphone app. MultiChain is used as the blockchain technology stack, as one of its features to support multiple token types is critical. RESULTS Database applications with smartphone apps integrated with MultiChain were developed. The whole set of the database schema was integrated with two smartphone apps, one for members, and the other for organizations, in addition to the two backend operations modules, one for organizations, and the other for managing all organizations and members. The MultiChain wallet was also integrated into the member app, as well as the organization backend modules for keeping track of the service transactions and time tokens. Metadata with the service transaction information is stored in the MultiChain blocks so that the transaction records are immutable and can thus be analyzed in the future. CONCLUSIONS The twelve characteristics of Cahn’s time banking are the guidelines of developing this MTBB with integration of MultiChain blockchain technology for tracking service transaction records. The study also combines the 1-to-1 member service exchange with organizations holding volunteer activities and issuing proprietary time tokens. With the blockchain transaction tracking mechanism, all of the elderly care service records through or within organizations can be tracked and analyzed to align with UN’s five SDGs.

scholarly journals How did Sweden Fail the Pandemic?

2021 ◽  
pp. 002073142199484
Author(s):  
Finn Diderichsen
Keyword(s):  
Elderly Care ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Nordic Countries ◽  
The Other ◽  
Differential Survival ◽  
Adequate Care ◽  
Differential Exposure ◽  
The Government ◽  
Differential Immunity ◽  
Inequalities In Mortality

Sweden has since the start of the pandemic a COVID-19 mortality rate that is 4 to 10 times higher than in the other Nordic countries. Also, measured as age-standardized all-cause excess mortality in the first half of 2020 compared to previous years Sweden failed in comparison with the other Nordic countries, but only among the elderly. Sweden has large socioeconomic and ethnic inequalities in COVID-19 mortality. Geographical, ethnic, and socioeconomic inequalities in mortality can be due to differential exposure to the virus, differential immunity, and differential survival. Most of the country differences are due to differential exposure, but the socioeconomic disparities are mainly driven by differential survival due to an unequal burden of comorbidity. Sweden suffered from an unfortunate timing of tourists returning from virus hotspots in the Alps and Sweden's government response came later and was much more limited than elsewhere. The government had an explicit priority to protect the elderly in nursing and care homes but failed to do so. The staff in elderly care are less qualified and have harder working conditions in Sweden, and they lacked adequate care for the clients. Sweden has in recent years diverged from the Scandinavian welfare model by strong commercialization of primary care and elderly care.

scholarly journals A Study on Supply–Demand Satisfaction of Community-Based Senior Care Combined with the Psychological Perception of the Elderly

Healthcare ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 643
Author(s):  
Jiangang Shi ◽  
Wenwen Hua ◽  
Daizhong Tang ◽  
Ke Xu ◽  
Quanwei Xu
Keyword(s):  
Latent Variables ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Care Service ◽  
Elderly Care ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Living Environment ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Strategic Decisions ◽  
Community Based ◽  
The Government

Based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory and customer satisfaction theory, we constructed a satisfaction model for supply–demand satisfaction for community-based senior care (SSCSC) combined with the psychological perspective of the elderly, and four dimensions of basic living needs (BLNs), living environment (LE), personal traits (PTs), and livability for the aged (LA) were selected to construct the model. The data were obtained from 296 questionnaires from seniors over 50 years old (or completed by relatives on their behalf, according to their actual situation). Twenty-two observed variables were selected for the five latent variables, and their interactions were explored using structural equation modeling. The results showed that LA was the most significant factor influencing SSCSC, and it was followed by BLNs and LE. PTs did not show a direct effect on LA, but they could have an indirect effect on SSCSC through influencing BLNs and LE. Based on the current state of community aging satisfaction, we propose to establish a community elderly care service system based on the basic needs of the elderly population, providing differentiated and refined elderly care services and improving the level of aging-friendly communities. This study provides references for the government to formulate relevant policies and other supply entities to make strategic decisions and has important implications for further enhancing community elderly services to become an important part of the social security system for the elderly.

scholarly journals Unsupervised Damage Detection for Offshore Jacket Wind Turbine Foundations Based on an Autoencoder Neural Network

Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (10) ◽  
pp. 3333
Author(s):  
Maria del Cisne Feijóo ◽  
Yovana Zambrano ◽  
Yolanda Vidal ◽  
Christian Tutivén
Keyword(s):  
Neural Network ◽  
Wind Turbine ◽  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Wind Farms ◽  
Offshore Wind ◽  
Offshore Wind Turbine ◽  
Small Subset ◽  
Scaled Model ◽  
Vibration Data ◽  
Large Water

Structural health monitoring for offshore wind turbine foundations is paramount to the further development of offshore fixed wind farms. At present time there are a limited number of foundation designs, the jacket type being the preferred one in large water depths. In this work, a jacket-type foundation damage diagnosis strategy is stated. Normally, most or all the available data are of regular operation, thus methods that focus on the data leading to failures end up using only a small subset of the available data. Furthermore, when there is no historical precedent of a type of fault, those methods cannot be used. In addition, offshore wind turbines work under a wide variety of environmental conditions and regions of operation involving unknown input excitation given by the wind and waves. Taking into account the aforementioned difficulties, the stated strategy in this work is based on an autoencoder neural network model and its contribution is two-fold: (i) the proposed strategy is based only on healthy data, and (ii) it works under different operating and environmental conditions based only on the output vibration data gathered by accelerometer sensors. The proposed strategy has been tested through experimental laboratory tests on a scaled model.

scholarly journals Registered nurses’ role experiences of caring for older stroke patients: a qualitative study

BMC Nursing ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Cheng ◽  
Jiong Tu ◽  
Xiaoyan Shen
Keyword(s):  
Nursing Education ◽  
Older People ◽  
Registered Nurses ◽  
Elderly Care ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Working Environment ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Stroke Patients ◽  
Care Needs ◽  
Nursing Clinical Practice

Abstract Background With China’s population ageing rapidly, stroke is becoming one of the major public health problems. Nurses are indispensable for caring for older patients with acute and convalescent stroke, and their working experiences are directly linked to the quality of care provided. The study aims to investigate registered nurses’ experiences of caring for older stroke patients. Methods A qualitative descriptive design was adopted. Data were collected via semi-structured interviews with 26 registered nurses about their lived experiences of caring for older stroke patients. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. Results Two main themes were identified. First, the nurses identified an obvious gap between their ideal role in elderly care and their actual practice. The unsatisfactory reality was linked to the practical difficulties they encountered in their working environment. Second, the nurses expressed conflicting feelings about caring for older stroke patients, displaying a sense of accomplishment, indifference, annoyance, and sympathy. Caring for older stroke patients also affects nurses psychologically and physically. The nurses were clear about their own roles and tried their best to meet the elderly people’s needs, yet they lack time and knowledge about caring for older stroke patients. The factors influencing their working experiences extend beyond the personal domain and are linked to the wider working environment. Conclusions Sustaining the nursing workforce and improving their working experiences are essential to meet the care needs of older people. Understanding nurses’ lived working experiences is the first step. At the individual level, nurse mangers should promote empathy, relieve anxiety about aging, and improve the job satisfaction and morale of nurses. At the institutional level, policymakers should make efforts to improve the nursing clinical practice environment, increase the geriatric nursing education and training, achieve a proper skill mix of the health workforce, and overall attract, prepare and sustain nurses regarding caring for older people in a rapidly aging society.

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