The Implementation of Age-Friendly Services for the Elderly Living Alone

Abstract

Recently in Korea, with the transition to a rapidly aging society and nuclear family, the number of old people suffering from chronic diseases and loneliness has also increased. Thus, there is a great need for providing convenience and safety support services, especially for the elderly living alone.

In this paper, we propose an age-friendly service that locates belongings in the home and protects the elderly from danger outside the home. First, for the elderly living alone who often lose their important belongings due to forgetfulness, we provide the convenience service of finding the lost items through the smartphone. Second, the safety support service is implemented to protect the elderly from sudden traffic accidents and dangers when going outside.

We have developed an application that finds the location of personal belongings through Bluetooth communication with smartphones by attaching small beacons to wallets and car keys that older people with forgetfulness or dementia often lose in the house. On the other hand, when an elderly person with poor hearing ability fail to hear warning sounds or vehicle closures on the road, a neck pillow which can sensitize these sounds and warn the elderly avoid accident using vibrations is implemented.

While the existing elderly support system is mainly aimed at providing living convenience, health care and emergency response for the elderly, the proposed system is focused on assisting elderly people with forgetfulness and preventing traffic accidents. If the proposed system is distributed countrywide, the elderly living alone will be able to live independently and safely at low cost, either at home and outside the home.

Keywords: Age-friendly Service, Traffic Accident Prevention, Resolve forgetfulness, Smart-phone Application, Autonomous Silver Life