Television-operating-state telemonitoring system in caring for elderly people living alone

We suppose that a television-operating-state (TVOS), i.e., whether a TV is turned on (TV-on) or off (TV-off), expresses the consistency of the rhythms of the long-established everyday rituals of a dweller. We developed a low-cost TVOS telemonitoring system in caring for elderly people living alone. The system is comprised of both analog and digital circuit sections. The analog circuit section consists of a current sensor and amplifier, and outputs the TVOS. The digital circuit section consists of two computers with an Internet connection. The computer at the family’s end requires the data from the computer at the elderly person’s end to be transmitted via the Internet every minute, receiving the TVOS data with a one-minute delay. Two healthy volunteers, a 79-year-old female living alone and a 21-year-old bachelor, participated in this study. Changes in the TVOS were monitored for over five weeks, and the data was found to coincide with the aged subject’s record of TVOS and showed the consistency of the daily rhythms of the TVOS.

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