Detecting Distress Events of Isolated Elderly Living in Remote Rural Regions

The objective of this project is to develop technology for detecting distress events of isolated elderly people living alone in remote rural regions. Many people live in isolated rural homes for a significant percentage of their adult life. As these people become elderly they can have a high preference to stay in their home as long they believe they can care for themselves. They may also be unable to afford to move to a place in a nearby town. Once they have reached an advanced age they can find themselves living alone. Perhaps a spouse has died or other family members or friends have left. Some may be financially able to move to a home in a community with neighbors nearby, however, will insist on staying in their isolated rural home because they resist the change. Many isolated rural homes cannot be viewed by a person passing in a car. Neighbors cannot notice changes in normal patterns such as lights or curtains which might indicate a problem in the home. There are many ways an elderly person living alone can become incapacitated and unable to call for help. Personal emergency alerting devices can be a solution for some situations but not all. An elderly person alone and in distress can be in a life and death situation in an isolated rural home. An innovative new automated technology is developed in this project that can detect if a person is incapacitated and automatically call for help using conventional telephone lines or a cell phone backup.