FEASIBILITY TESTING OF SENSOR-BASED ACTIVITY MONITORING OF IMMIGRANT KOREAN ELDERS
This study aimed to test feasibility of a multi-sensor monitoring platform designed to assess mobility and daily activity patterns among immigrant Korean elders.
Rationale/Conceptual Basis/Background
With the continuous growth of the older adult population and the ongoing health care workforce shortage, there is a need for innovative tools that can monitor health and deliver care in real-time, effective and minimally intrusive way. Home-based sensors, designed to record activities of individuals and health status in their living spaces, have the potential to intervene promptly to prevent adverse health events resulting from functional decline by detecting changes in activity patterns. Despite a growing interest in using home-based sensors for community-dwelling older adults, no documented attempts have been made to use this type of technology to explore activity patterns of Asian American older adults.
Methods
An exploratory multiple case-study methodology was used to investigate how the multi-sensor monitoring system is utilized within real-life context. The system, which consisted of a set of motion sensors, water consumption sensor, laptop, receiver, and wireless Internet router, was deployed in four homes of immigrant Korean elders (N = 6) living in the community. The monitoring period ranged from 8 to 12 weeks. These sensors capture various events in which a participant may be involved. Multiple data collection techniques were used: 1) data collection from the sensors, 2) administration of self-report instruments to measure mobility and health, and 3) activity logs over two weeks. Sensor data analysis was focused on characterizing participants’ mobility and activity trends in each area of the home over 2-3 months of follow-up. For this aim, line graphs and sequence plots were applied to data obtained from motion and water consumption sensors.
Results
More than 6,000 home-hours of continuous activity data were collected during this study. All study participants were ambulatory and cognitively intact at baseline. By continuously monitoring older adults by using unobtrusive home-based sensor technologies, we have been able to observe multiple parameters of activity and mobility patterns of individuals, for example, 24-hour activity pattern or long-term changes in activity trends. The activity data obtained from the sensor system show the natural daily patterns in some individuals and also variability in others during the study period. In addition, the data indicate that no one experienced decline in their activity levels or mobility over the data collection period. Most people perceived the system was not obtrusive to their daily lives. Findings from this study demonstrated successful deployment of a home-based sensor system for monitoring mobility and daily activities among immigrant Korean elders.
Implications
Our study suggests that technology-based interventions can be successfully delivered longitudinally to a minority population of older adults that is not often targeted as an end user group for the use of sensor technologies. Given the feasibility demonstrated in this study, future research needs to involve a greater number of participants in an extended period of time to assess the important role of home-based sensors on achieving proactive patient-centered health care for community-dwelling minority older adults.