A study of integrating digital health network with UPnP in an elderly nursing home

The percentage of the elderly population grew rapidly in recent years, so the tremendous life and health care needs became an issue of focus in an aging society. The elderly nursing home plays an important role and intends to provide a comfortable environment and living space and serve as safe and healthy place for the elderly. However, the frailty and fragility of the elderly in both physiologically and psychologically make it an uneasy task. To enhance the service and care quality of an elderly nursing home, a ubiquitous monitor system integrated with biosensors and wireless network technology was implemented as a prototyping system. For managing sensors easily, the universal plug and play (UPnP) technology from digital living network alliance (DLNA) is adopted. The system was expected to be a digital health network to improve the activity of daily living (ADL) of the residents, to detect the emergencies or accidents such as stroke, falling down, fainting, and heart attack, in order to enhance the quality of care and promote efficiency at the same time.