Detecting degeneration: Monitoring cognitive health in independent elders

Australia has an ever increasing ageing population due to advances in healthcare and post-war booms in fertility. Estimations that over 22% of the population will be aged 65+ in 2050 provide a strong incentive to develop innovative assistive technologies to support elderly people to live safely at home longer. Extended independent living can improve quality of life for elders and their families and reduce costs associated with health and aged care. There is however, the need to monitor the elderly resident´s safety, physical health and brain function. The Smarter Safer Homes project aims to develop a platform to facilitate independent living. The platform will aggregate sensor information at environmental, cognitive, physical, and physiological levels, allowing changes and trends in activities of daily living to be monitored. Such monitoring could potentially predict decline of brain function. Here we present how data derived from a sensor-based in-home monitoring system may be able to be used to provide a measure of neurological health. This measure could then facilitate tailoring of the home to meet the resident´s changing needs, or to determine when a move to residential care is required.