Construction of Home Care Support System using a Wearable Computer : An extension of the Hyper Hospital to Home Care Support System

Abstract

In the coming society of aging population, social demand for the various types of home-care to elderly people is surging. Though numerous attempts are being made for the elderly care, most of them unfortunately seem to be developed mainly from the viewpoint of providers of such services, not from that of patients nor elderly people. In the present study, we developed a wearable computer system as an human interface to enhance the communication among patients and care-takers. It was designed to be flexibly connected to the home computer networks (the Hyper Hospital at home) by means of the Internet technology using PHS (Personal Handy Phone system) and TCP/IP protocols. When it is connected to the network, it allows the service providers dynamically browse and update the patients' data acquired and stored in the patients' home network.