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Comparative investigation of remote tracking devices for aging care

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Abstract

Tracking devices help the elderly patients to remain safe, secure and traceable in case of getting lost or in an emergency. This research work was conducted to evaluate the appropriateness of few commercially available tracking devices for aging people, by identifying their usefulness, efficiency, limitations and further improvements. Research involved two steps; literature review about two existing tracking devices simply termed device A and device B, followed by a performance and comparative analysis of the aforementioned devices by applying basic statistics on the results obtained from a questionnaire survey. Devices were used by two groups of people: aging (>70 year old) and middle-aged patients (less than 70 years old) who reported their satisfaction levels about the said devices on a scale of one to five. These devices were found helpful in reducing the dependency of the elderly on others and raised their privacy values. However, these were not recommended for severe memory loss or later stage of critical staged dementia patients because learning and memorizing the process of handling these devices can be difficult for them. Overall, the performance of device B outplayed device A while comparing all considered device parameters. The calling feature of device B appeared to be an appealing characteristic with mean satisfaction levels of 4.9 ± 0.32 and 4.7 ± 0.48 as reported by the middle-aged and aging groups, respectively. These devices will be helpful in decreasing unnecessary rush at health care centers or lost person reporting in police. In upcoming years, these devices can be developed to remotely monitor the movement of the patient.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to EPTEK ry, Seinäjoki, as they provided their GPS tracking devices for this research work. We are also thankful to Professor Kari Mäkelä and Mr. Sami Perälä for their guidance in this research work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Barrett Hodgson University, Karachi, Pakistan

    M. W. Munir, G. Munir & M. Z. Ul Haque

  2. Biomedical Sciences and Engineering, Tampere University of Technology, Tampere, Finland

    M. W. Munir

  3. Biomedical Engineering Department, Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi, Pakistan

    N. Shahid & S. M. Omair

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  1. M. W. Munir
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  2. N. Shahid
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  4. G. Munir
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Correspondence to M. W. Munir.

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Munir, M.W., Shahid, N., Omair, S.M. et al. Comparative investigation of remote tracking devices for aging care. Int. j. inf. tecnol. 9, 261–266 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41870-017-0034-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41870-017-0034-7

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