Integrated retirement living accommodation and ageing care services provider ECH is working with a start-up manufacturer of ‘smart’ baby suits to see if they can be adapted to help seniors stay at home longer.
Biomedical Engineering consultant Shem Richards and his wife Laura, of Adelaide, developed the Goldilocks Suit, a Bluetooth technology baby monitoring system that detects motion, activity and temperature through sensors that connect to a low-energy Bluetooth module that sits in a pocket on the tummy of the suit and passes the data to the app.
Mr Richards told InDaily why ECH was interested in the product Goldilocks.
“It’s a similar concept to the baby suit but in this case, it’s building smart clothing to help parents live independently in their own homes while reassuring their adult children or care providers such as ECH that they are OK,” Mr Richards said.
“What ECH wants to track are things like core temperature, skin temperature to ensure that they haven’t left the heater on or left it off when they needed it, breathing so they can pick up issues early and location to make sure they are not in the middle of a park at 3am when they shouldn’t be.”
ECH CEO Dr David Panter said it is working with Goldilocks to see how to adapt the technology to create smart clothing for older people “that provides a comfortable way of assessing their wellbeing and quality of life in an unobtrusive way.”
Amazing to think that one day a ‘smart suit’ could be the difference in keeping you at home.
