Trends in home-based safety and health alert support systems for older people

There is a trend towards the development of sensor systems to help older people improve their safety in the home environment. This is due to an increase in the average age of the population, together with a greater focus on providing non-hospital health care services, and greater availability of low-cost components to support such systems. It is expected that smart home care technologies would be potentially useful in monitoring the safety of the elderly in the home environment. The safety of older and disabled people can be continuously monitored without interrupting their daily routine with intelligent devices and modern sensors located in their home environment and on the body. While home care technologies are beneficial for older people, and encourage independence, there are still privacy and safety issue that need to be considered if such systems are to be widely adopted. Further research is required, especially with respect to regarding use cases and the cost implications of home-based systems.