scholarly journals Smart-Object-Based Reasoning System for Indoor Acoustic Profiling of Elderly Inhabitants

Electronics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 1433
Author(s):  
Jeannette Chin ◽  
Alin Tisan ◽  
Victor Callaghan ◽  
David Chik
Keyword(s):  
Elderly Person ◽  
Health Sector ◽  
Experimental System ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Residential Home ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
Design Data ◽  
Home Setting ◽  
Daily Routines ◽  
Abnormal Events

Many countries are facing significant challenges in relation to providing adequate care for their elderly citizens. The roots of these issues are manifold, but include changing demographics, changing behaviours, and a shortage of resources. As has been witnessed in the health sector and many others in society, technology has much to offer in terms of supporting people’s needs. This paper explores the potential for ambient intelligence to address this challenge by creating a system that is able to passively monitor the home environment, detecting abnormal situations which may indicate that the inhabitant needs help. There are many ways that this might be achieved, but in this paper, we will describe our investigation into an approach involving unobtrusively ’listening’ to sound patterns within the home, which classifies these as either normal daily activities, or abnormal situations. The experimental system we built was composed of an innovative combination of acoustic sensing, artificial intelligence (AI), and the Internet-of-Things (IoT), which we argue in the paper that it provides a cost-effective approach to alerting care providers when an elderly person in their charge needs help. The majority of the innovation in our work concerns the AI in which we employ Machine Learning to classify the sound profiles, analyse the data for abnormal events, and to make decisions for raising alerts with carers. A Neural Network classifier was used to train and identify the sound profiles associated with normal daily routines within a given person’s home, signalling departures from the daily routines that were then used as templates to measure deviations from normality, which were used to make weighted decisions regarding calling for assistance. A practical experimental system was then designed and deployed to evaluate the methods advocated by this research. The methodology involved gathering pre-design and post-design data from both a professionally run residential home and a domestic home. The pre-design data gathered the views on the system design from 11 members of the residential home, using survey questionnaires and focus groups. These data were used to inform the design of the experimental system, which was then deployed in a domestic home setting to gather post-design experimental data. The experimental results revealed that the system was able to detect 84% of abnormal events, and advocated several refinements which would improve the performance of the system. Thus, the research concludes that the system represents an important advancement to the state-of-the-art and, when taken together with the refinements, represents a line of research which has the potential to deliver significant improvements to care provision for the elderly.

scholarly journals Domestic Violence in Mozambique From policy to practice

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eunice Jethá ◽  
Ines Keygnaert ◽  
Emilia Martins ◽  
Mohsin Sidat ◽  
Kristien Roelens
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Health Sector ◽  
Integrated Approach ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Care Provision ◽  
Focal Points ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
Design Data ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Depth Interviews

Abstract Background: To reduce the impact of domestic violence (DV), Mozambican governmental and non-governmental entities are making efforts to strengthen the legislative framework and improve the accessibility of care services for survivors of violence. Despite this remarkable commitment, the translation of policies and legislation into actions remains a huge challenge. Therefore, this paper aims to identify gaps in the implementation of existing national policies and laws for DV in the services providing care for survivors of DV. Methods: This study, using a qualitative approach had two components. The first was content analysis of guidelines and protocols for DV care provision. The second consisted of in-depth interviews with institutional gender focal points. The analysis of the document content was based on a framework developed according to key elements recommended by international agencies (PAHO and UN) for DV policies and strategies design. Data from the in-depth interviews, where analysed in accordance with study objectives. Results: Eleven (11) guidelines/protocols of care provision and innumerable brochures and pamphlets were identified and analysed. There is a standardised form which highlights the integrated approach incorporating fields for police and the health sector but excludes Civil Society Organizations. However, there is no national DV database. Although the focal points recognised the relevance of the reviewed documents, many identified gaps in implementation. This is related to the weaknesses of the offender’s penalisation and to the scarcity of care providers. And, many providers who do exist often lack appropriate training. They also recognised their performance is negatively influenced by socio-cultural factors. Conclusion : Within services providing care to survivors of DV, a scarcity of guidelines and protocols exist, compromising the quality and standardisation of care . Recognition of the relevance of care guidelines and protocols is a strength, there are challenges governmental and non-governmental entities must address in order to ensure DV prevention and control strategies have the desired results.

scholarly journals Domestic Violence in Mozambique: From policy to practice

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eunice Jethá ◽  
Ines Keygnaert ◽  
Emilia Martins ◽  
Mohsin Sidat ◽  
Kristien Roelens
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Health Sector ◽  
Integrated Approach ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Care Provision ◽  
Focal Points ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
Design Data ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Depth Interviews

Abstract Background: To reduce the impact of domestic violence (DV), Mozambican governmental and non-governmental entities are making efforts to strengthen the legislative framework and improve the accessibility of care services for survivors of violence. Despite this remarkable commitment, the translation of policies and legislation into actions remains a huge challenge. Therefore, this paper aims to identify gaps in the implementation of existing national policies and laws for DV in the services providing care for survivors of DV. Methods: This study, using a qualitative approach had two components. The first was content analysis of guidelines and protocols for DV care provision. The second consisted of in-depth interviews with institutional gender focal points. The analysis of the document content was based on a framework developed according to key elements recommended by international agencies (PAHO and UN) for DV policies and strategies design. Data from the in-depth interviews, where analysed in accordance with study objectives.Results: Eleven (11) guidelines/protocols of care provision and innumerable brochures and pamphlets were identified and analysed. There is a standardised form which highlights the integrated approach incorporating fields for police and the health sector but excludes Civil Society Organizations. However, there is no national DV database. Although the focal points recognised the relevance of the reviewed documents, many identified gaps in implementation. This is related to the weaknesses of the offender’s penalisation and to the scarcity of care providers. And, many providers who do exist often lack appropriate training. They also recognised their performance is negatively influenced by socio-cultural factors.Conclusion: Within services providing care to survivors of DV, a scarcity of guidelines and protocols exist, compromising the quality and standardisation of care. Recognition of the relevance of care guidelines and protocols is a strength, there are challenges governmental and non-governmental entities must address in order to ensure DV prevention and control strategies have the desired results.

scholarly journals Domestic Violence in Mozambique: From policy to practice

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eunice Jethá ◽  
Ines Keygnaert ◽  
Emilia Martins ◽  
Mohsin Sidat ◽  
Kristien Roelens
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Control Strategies ◽  
Health Sector ◽  
Integrated Approach ◽  
Care Provision ◽  
Focal Points ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
Design Data ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Depth Interviews

Abstract Background: To reduce the impact of domestic violence (DV), Mozambican governmental and non-governmental entities are making efforts to strengthen the legislative framework and improve the accessibility of care services for survivors of violence. Despite this remarkable commitment, the translation of policies and legislation into actions remains a huge challenge. Therefore, this paper aims to identify gaps in the implementation of existing national policies and laws for DV in the services providing care for survivors of DV.Methods: This study, using a qualitative approach had two components. The first was content analysis of guidelines and protocols for DV care provision. The second consisted of in-depth interviews with institutional gender focal points. The analysis of the document content was based on a framework developed according to key elements recommended by international agencies (PAHO and UN) for DV policies and strategies design. Data from the in-depth interviews, where analysed in accordance with study objectives.Results: Eleven (11) guidelines/protocols of care provision and innumerable brochures and pamphlets were identified and analysed. There is a standardised form highlighting the integrated approach incorporating fields for police and the health sector but excludes Civil Society Organisations. However, there is no national DV database specifically for DV. Although the focal points recognised the relevance of the reviewed documents, many identified gaps in implementation. This is related to the weaknesses of the offender’s penalisation and to the scarcity of care providers. And, many providers who do exist often lack appropriate training. They also recognised their performance is negatively influenced by socio-cultural factors.Conclusion: Within services providing care to survivors of DV, a scarcity of guidelines and protocols exist, compromising the quality and standardisation of care. Recognition of the relevance of care guidelines and protocols is a strength, there are challenges that governmental and non-governmental entities must address in order to ensure DV prevention and control strategies have the desired results.

Integrated Care

2015 ◽  
pp. 163-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hadas Lewy
Keyword(s):  
Integrated Care ◽  
Elderly Population ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Elderly Person ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Organizational Level ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
Care For The Elderly ◽  
Societal Needs ◽  
To Receive

This chapter will review the individual's, organizational and societal needs for integrated care for the elderly population and the suggested solutions. For the elderly population, early diagnosis and timely personalized intervention is crucial for treatment, prevention of deterioration and hospitalization. The author describes the development of new technologies that enables the involved parties (e.g. healthcare, welfare, community) to receive relevant reliable information and respond in a timely and personalized way that will address the specific needs of the patient/elderly person. The need also exists at the organizational level for better management and care. The proposed solution will address the organizational needs by integrating into healthcare system and workflow and involving multidisciplinary healthcare professionals, family and other care providers.

HUBUNGAN DUKUNGAN KELUARGA, PENGETAHUAN, DENGAN KEAKTIFAN LANJUT USIA (Lansia) MENGIKUTI KEGIATAN POSYANDU LANSIA DI WILAYAH PUSKESMAS GADING SURABAYA

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
NINDY VARA MEIGIA
Keyword(s):  
Health Center ◽  
Family Support ◽  
Elderly People ◽  
Simple Random Sampling ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Design Data ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Bivariate Data ◽  
Quality Regulation ◽  
Cross Sectional Design

Minimum Standards Service is basic service quality regulation that is entitled to be obtained by every citizen. Elderly people must obtain 100% health services. Various factors can lead to low visits to the elderly posyandu in the Gading Puskesmas area in 2017. Objective: to find out the relationship between family support, knowledge, and elderly activities in the elderly posyandu in Gading Surabaya puskesmas. Method: The type of research is observational analytic with a cross-sectional design. Data processing and analysis is done by univariate and bivariate. Data collection techniques by conducting simple random sampling with a sample of 94 elderly people. Location and time of research from December 2018 at the posyandu in the Gading Surabaya health center area. Results: There is a significant value of 0,000 <0,05, so it can be concluded is have a relationship with family support, knowledge of elderly with activity following the elderly posyandu at Gading Surabaya health center

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“.

scholarly journals AnkFall—Falls, Falling Risks and Daily-Life Activities Dataset with an Ankle-Placed Accelerometer and Training Using Recurrent Neural Networks

Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (5) ◽  
pp. 1889
Author(s):  
Francisco Luna-Perejón ◽  
Luis Muñoz-Saavedra ◽  
Javier Civit-Masot ◽  
Anton Civit ◽  
Manuel Domínguez-Morales
Keyword(s):  
Elderly Person ◽  
Fall Detection ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Daily Life Activities ◽  
Learning Classifier ◽  
The People ◽  
Activity Types ◽  
Remote Monitoring Systems ◽  
Secondary Study

Falls are one of the leading causes of permanent injury and/or disability among the elderly. When these people live alone, it is convenient that a caregiver or family member visits them periodically. However, these visits do not prevent falls when the elderly person is alone. Furthermore, in exceptional circumstances, such as a pandemic, we must avoid unnecessary mobility. This is why remote monitoring systems are currently on the rise, and several commercial solutions can be found. However, current solutions use devices attached to the waist or wrist, causing discomfort in the people who wear them. The users also tend to forget to wear the devices carried in these positions. Therefore, in order to prevent these problems, the main objective of this work is designing and recollecting a new dataset about falls, falling risks and activities of daily living using an ankle-placed device obtaining a good balance between the different activity types. This dataset will be a useful tool for researchers who want to integrate the fall detector in the footwear. Thus, in this work we design the fall-detection device, study the suitable activities to be collected, collect the dataset from 21 users performing the studied activities and evaluate the quality of the collected dataset. As an additional and secondary study, we implement a simple Deep Learning classifier based on this data to prove the system’s feasibility.

scholarly journals An Unsupervised Behavioral Modeling and Alerting System Based on Passive Sensing for Elderly Care

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 6
Author(s):  
Rui Hu ◽  
Bruno Michel ◽  
Dario Russo ◽  
Niccolò Mora ◽  
Guido Matrella ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Status ◽  
Healthcare Service ◽  
Behavioral Science ◽  
Elderly Care ◽  
Elderly Person ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Healthcare Services ◽  
Living Condition ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
Remote Healthcare

Artificial Intelligence in combination with the Internet of Medical Things enables remote healthcare services through networks of environmental and/or personal sensors. We present a remote healthcare service system which collects real-life data through an environmental sensor package, including binary motion, contact, pressure, and proximity sensors, installed at households of elderly people. Its aim is to keep the caregivers informed of subjects’ health-status progressive trajectory, and alert them of health-related anomalies to enable objective on-demand healthcare service delivery at scale. The system was deployed in 19 households inhabited by an elderly person with post-stroke condition in the Emilia–Romagna region in Italy, with maximal and median observation durations of 98 and 55 weeks. Among these households, 17 were multi-occupancy residences, while the other 2 housed elderly patients living alone. Subjects’ daily behavioral diaries were extracted and registered from raw sensor signals, using rule-based data pre-processing and unsupervised algorithms. Personal behavioral habits were identified and compared to typical patterns reported in behavioral science, as a quality-of-life indicator. We consider the activity patterns extracted across all users as a dictionary, and represent each patient’s behavior as a ‘Bag of Words’, based on which patients can be categorized into sub-groups for precision cohort treatment. Longitudinal trends of the behavioral progressive trajectory and sudden abnormalities of a patient were detected and reported to care providers. Due to the sparse sensor setting and the multi-occupancy living condition, the sleep profile was used as the main indicator in our system. Experimental results demonstrate the ability to report on subjects’ daily activity pattern in terms of sleep, outing, visiting, and health-status trajectories, as well as predicting/detecting 75% hospitalization sessions up to 11 days in advance. 65% of the alerts were confirmed to be semantically meaningful by the users. Furthermore, reduced social interaction (outing and visiting), and lower sleep quality could be observed during the COVID-19 lockdown period across the cohort.

scholarly journals Relationships matter: How clinicians can support positive parenting in the early years

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (5) ◽  
pp. 340-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin C Williams ◽  
Anne Biscaro ◽  
Jean Clinton
Keyword(s):  
Healthy Adult ◽  
Primary Care Providers ◽  
Positive Parenting ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
Secure Attachment ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Attachment Relationship ◽  
Daily Routines ◽  
Parent Child Relationships

Abstract A secure attachment relationship with at least one healthy adult is essential for a child to develop optimal coping abilities. Primary care providers like paediatricians and family physicians can help by supporting parents in practice settings. Every clinician encounter is an opportunity to ask parents about children’s relationships and their behaviour, daily routines, and overall family function. This statement, which focuses on children aged 0 to 6 years, describes basic principles in support of positive parenting and recommends in-office practices to promote secure parent–child relationships, engage families and build trust with parents. Crying, sleep, and difficult behaviours are described as opportunities for clinicians to provide anticipatory, responsive guidance to parents.

scholarly journals Evaluation of Malnutrition and Depression in Elderly People: An Epidemiological Study in Turkey

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (Supplement_4) ◽  
Author(s):  
S Aydoğan ◽  
A Ünsal ◽  
D Arslantaş
Keyword(s):  
Health Care Providers ◽  
Nutritional Assessment ◽  
Short Form ◽  
Geriatric Depression Scale ◽  
Depression Scale ◽  
Mini Nutritional Assessment ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Cluster Sampling ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
Cross Sectional

Abstract Background Malnutrition is an important cause of morbidity and mortality. Malnutrition increases the number of hospitalizations and prolongs the length of hospitalization by disrupting organ functions, increasing the number and severity of infections and delaying wound healing. The aim of this study was to determine the frequency of suspected malnutrition in the elderly, to examine some related variables and to evaluate the depression. Methods The study is a cross-sectional study conducted between March-April 2019 in individuals aged 60 years and older living in Sivrihisar. Sample size was calculated as 579. Cluster sampling method used. Data was collected by door to door in 4 neighborhoods determined by randomly. Mini Nutritional Assessment Test-Short Form (for malnutrition), Katz Daily Living Activities Scale (for dependency) and Geriatric Depression Scale-Short Form (for depression) were used. Chi-square test, Mann Whitney U test and logistic regression analysis were used for the analyzes. Results The study group consisted of 220 (38%) women and 359 (62%) men. The mean age was 68.9±6.4 (ranged 60-93). Frequency of suspected malnutrition was 25% (n = 145). Being 80 years of age or older (OR:3.24, CI:1.53-6.85), having a primary and lower education level (OR:2.54, CI:1.32-4.90), history of chronic illness (OR:2.34, CI:1.33-4.03), using dentures (OR:1.62, CI:1.03-2.55) and suspected depression (OR:4.97, CI:3.17-7.78) are important risk factors for malnutrition. Those with suspicion of malnutrition had lower scores on DLA (z = 8.982;p=0.001). Conclusions Malnutrition was found to be an important health problem for the elderly. The frequency of suspected malnutrition is higher in individuals with depression. Those with suspected malnutrition have higher level of dependency. In order to reduce the frequency of malnutrition, it may be beneficial to increase the awareness of the elderly and caregivers and to give importance to the elderly nutrition of primary health care providers. Key messages Depression is an important risk factor for malnutrition. Malnutrition increases the dependence of the individual on daily activities.

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