Abstract
With a rapid increase in aging population and decline in birth rate, technology intervention for a more efficient management of care services has become an important issue. For the residents in nursing homes, the bed is an indispensible part of their daily lives. As a result, the bed is often used as a basic unit for care service management in nursing homes. This paper describes the development a soft pressure sensing pad, called “SmartPad”, which can be put on bed for unobtrusive sensing of physical activities on the bed. An advanced care management system (CMS) is built based on martPad to help improve the quality of healthcare in nursing homes. The pressure sensing unit of the SmartPad is in a sandwich structure of two pieces of elastic fabric, on which conductive fiber is knitted in a special pattern, with pieces of conductive fabric in between. Based on the linear relationship between the applied pressure and the resistance of the pressure sensing unit, SmartPad is capable of collecting the bed-activity signals of the residents. The signals are analyzed by the event algorithm implemented in the bedside data processor. Through the wireless data transmission enabled by ZigBee, the event messages are displayed graphically on the information board of the CMS at the nursing station to facilitate real-time monitoring (on/off bed status, in-bed activities, body pressure distribution), service reminder (off-bed notification, timing for turning the resident’s body) and history reports. The nursing staff can follow the event messages to keep aware of the residents’ needs for emergency and urgent care, as well as providing life and healthcare management for them. By using the soft, comfortable, washable, low-cost and easy-to-manufacture materials, SmartPad has good potential for daily use in nursing homes. Integrated with the CMS, it opens a new possibility of healthcare with higher quality and better performance.