Implementation Difficulties and Solutions of a Smart-Cloth assisted Home Nursing Care Program for disabled older persons

Abstract Background: Wearable devices have the advantage of always being with individuals, enabling easy detection of their movements. In this study, we developed and implemented a smart-care system using smart clothing for persons with dementia and with hip fracture. Objective: This paper reports conducted a preliminary study to understand family caregivers’ and care receivers’ experiences of receiving a smart technology-assisted (STA) home-nursing care program. Methods: The STA model of a home-nursing care program for older persons with dementia or hip fracture included a remote-monitoring system with a smart-vest to facilitate family caregivers’ detection of the care receivers’ movements. These movements included getting up at night, staying in the bathroom time, not moving time during the day, leaving the house, and daily activity level. Participants included 12 families with five patients with hip fracture and seven with dementia. A description of the process of setting up the individual STA in-home systems, measures that were monitored and the difficulties encountered. Results: Difficulties encountered were due to multiple problems. They were comprised of three categories: incompatibility of the home environment, interruptions in data transmissions and inaccuracies in data transmissions. Conclusions: Three main difficulties impeded implementation of the STA home care for persons with dementia or hip fracture. Each of these difficulties had their own unique problems and strategies to resolve them. Our findings can provide a reference for futureimplementation of similar smart-home systems.