Elderly care through unusual behavior detection: A disaster management approach using IoT and intelligence

Abstract

This article attempts to provide a minimal disaster management framework for the elderly who are living alone. Elderly people are generally vulnerable to hazards and emergency situations. The proposed framework aims at developing an Internet of Things (IoT)-based intelligent, protective ecosystem for elderly that calls for help in emergencies such as floods, earthquakes, home fires, volcanic eruptions, and storms. This disaster system makes use of a range of calamity sensors in conjunction with in-house activities of the elderly subject. In the case of mishappening, the disaster relief authorities, community members, and other stakeholders will be instantly informed. All these sensors are powered through an uninterrupted electricity supply system, which will continue to work even in the case of power outages. The work carried out in this article is deeply inspired by the need to have holistic platforms that ensure a low-cost, robust, and responsive disaster alert system for the elderly (DASE) in place. Our objective is to overcome many of the shortcomings in the existing systems and offer a reactive disaster recovery technique. Additionally, this article also incorporates the need to take care of numerous important factors, for instance, the elderly individual's limited physical and cognitive limitations, ergonomic requirements, spending capacity, etc.