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Resident Bed Monitoring System

ISO13485Case Study: Resident Bed Monitoring System
The Complete Resident Bed Monitoring System for Care Homes

The brief:
LifeSys Limited, based in Nottingham UK, came to ML Electronics with a prototype system designed to provide complete monitoring for care homes. The system detects when residents get in and out of bed, when they leave and re-enter their room and incorporates an enuresis sensor to help prevent discomfort and bed sores from night-time incontinence.

Each room is connected to a central controller, which allows alarm settings to be maintained, reviewed and changed to the individual needs of the resident. Alarms are communicated directly to carers via pagers or existing call alarm systems. LifeSys' requirement was to find a company that would turn the working model into a complete, workable solution they could take successfully to a demanding market.
Patient Bed Monitoring
The challenge:
MLE's initial analysis showed that the prototype would be unlikely to meet key requirements of cost, installation speed and resident acceptance. Based on an embedded PC, its industrial-style packaging was cumbersome and intrusive. Furthermore a number of technical challenges needed to be overcome in order for the system to perform dependably.

The solution:
MLE re-engineered the initial concept from the ground up. A new hub unit was developed that provides the communications, control and data processing functions. Bed sensors were improved to provide better discrimination of movement and unambiguous detection of enuresis. Battery lifetime was improved by re-engineering the door sensor internals. An innovative solution was developed enhancing power-line communications to enable the hubs to communicate effectively and reliably with the central controller PC. Overall, installation time was dramatically improved, operation was simplified and resident acceptability enhanced.

Bed sensors:
MLE worked closely with the client to develop an innovative sensor that detects changes to a low voltage electromagnetic field, which indicates the presence of a resident and even the level of movement. Engineers researched materials for the washable, long-life electrodes and advised on techniques for incorporating them into standard bed cover materials.

Door sensor:
The door sensor features a microcontroller with integrated analogue-digital converter to reduce power requirements and extend battery life.

Patient hub:
Instead of carrying the overheads of a fully functional PC, MLE proposed a solution based on an ARM 7 RISC processor working in co-operation with a fast floating point signal processor (DSP) and high-speed plus high-resolution digital-analogue converter. As well as processing and control functions, the hub links to door sensors using 2.4GHz wireless technology and networks with the central controller using proven HomePlug 1.0 turbo mains networking. The design team carried out independent research to improve the discrimination of resident movement, and embodied the results into DSP software, which performs synchronous demodulation to detect changes in resonant frequency when the residents get in or out of bed. They also optimised the system to provide the ideal balance between noise performance and sampling speed. MLE worked with industrial designers to develop wall-mounted packaging that looks acceptable in place and is quick and easy to install. Shaped like a wall-light, the unit incorporates LEDs that light up when a resident gets out of bed.

Networking:
MLE's trials in the early stages demonstrated the limitations of HomePlug in care-home environments, where residents' rooms may be remote from the carers, wiring may be complex and old. The team has developed new protocols that overcome all the limitations to create error-free, fail-safe, highly-redundant communications.
Bed monitoring
Central controller:
Extensive expertise and experience with graphical interfaces is embodied in the easy-to-use software that MLE developed specifically for the LifeSys central controller.

Outcomes:
MLE provided expertise, experience and research to deliver a compact, quick-to-install and cost-effective solution which is already being used to monitor and improve resident well-being.

To find out more about this Resident Care Monitoring system, visit www.lifesys.com

 

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