Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Other main injuries suffered are bruising or crushing, cuts, wounds resulting from
piercing and straining or twisting part of the body.
Food poisoning is another threat which could be prevented by measures that are
part of a proper “Food Chain management”. It might use the packaging of food with
information about its origin, ingredients, nutritive value, transport conditions, minimum
durability. The packaging could communicate via RF (radio frequency) transceiver
with the refrigerator or another (mobile) device which might contain data about
standard and limit values of the relevant parameters of specific foods. It might also
include information on individual diet plans of the user or his or her intolerances to
certain ingredients. Another component is a small portable analytical apparatus that
will give information on the status of the food via a remote scanning system.
“Intelligent” clothing might be a tool to detect an emergency in situations in which
the user is not within reach of stationary sensors and/or is not able to activate an
emergency call. This clothing contains a sensor-system that will detect an emergency
on the basis of missing or abnormal motion and physiological parameters of the user. It
also contains a RF transceiver to automatically call an emergency service and provides
a communication link to the centre.
Another system which might improve the safety of older users is a so-called
“emergency recognition system”, which learns the “normal” behaviour and activities of
the individual user and compares it with his or her actual activities. It uses a range of
common sensors that are installed in the flat or house. In the case of missing activities
compared with a prediction of the usual behaviour, the system would give a warning to
the user and in the case of continuing missing activities would give an alarm to relevant
people or an emergency centre.
Table 5.
Safety against other personal fatalities.
Situation
Technical solution
Current state of technical solution
Missing activities due to an
medical emergency case or
a fall etc.
Emergency recognition system
Intelligent activity analysis under
development
Loss of geographic
orientation
Personal navigator; navigation
device with speech output; file
of tracked course; tracker with
access by family/care provider
Pervasive positioning under
development; privacy might be a
problem
Hot food/drinks
Plate/cup with temperature
sensor
Prototypes presented
Wrong drugs/wrong
dosage/detrimental
interaction between
different drugs
Intelligent drug dispenser,
Monitoring and reminding drug
dispenser systems available. More
intelligence and cooperation with drug
producers seems necessary.
Software to evaluate knowledge of
detrimental effects of drug
combinations needed. Information in
database is available, but yet integrated
in a full solution.
