Micro-Chips Keep Track of Aging Seniors
Pastor Dale Morgan
Micro-Chips Keep Track of Aging Seniors*
Mark Baard
The Memory Mirror (its time line display shown here) records the times
that RFID-tagged objects are picked up and returned to a shelf or
counter top being monitored by an RFID reader. The image of the Advil
bottle at 1 p.m. suggests the system's user took the painkiller at that
time. The key (combined with the absence of other activity) suggests the
user was out of the house from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Researchers have built two new systems that use radio frequency
identification tags to monitor the elderly in their own homes.
RFID tags, as they are called, are widely used as a part of building
security passes, Speedpass key chain devices and E-ZPasses for paying
highway tolls. Retailers also expect RFID tags to replace bar codes on
store items over the next 15 years.
RFID technology can also improve health care for the elderly, said
researchers at Intel Research Seattle and the Georgia Institute of
Technology. Caregivers receiving data via the Internet from RFID readers
can monitor seniors' daily activities by recording which tagged items
they have picked up, and when. By comparing real-time data with a record
of an individual's normal daily routine, caregivers can easily spot any
significant changes.
Changes in an individual's daily routine often signal the onset of
illness and cognitive decline, according to physicians and experts on aging.
The new systems, Intel's Caregiver's Assistant and Georgia Tech's Memory
Mirror, will also ensure that forgetful seniors take their medication on
time and stick to their prescribed diets, their developers say.
The Caregiver's Assistant even automatically fills out a daily
activities form, which is normally completed by caregivers for the
elderly when they make home visits.
The researchers presented the Caregiver's Assistant and Memory Mirror at
a demonstration of assistive technologies for the aging in Washington,
D.C., this week. The demonstration marked the founding of the Center for
Aging Services Technologies, or CAST, an organization run by Intel that
will promote the development of devices to help people "age in place,"
which means growing old at home rather than in a nursing home.
In order for the elderly to live at home longer, however, CAST believes
seniors will have to sacrifice much of their privacy. Doctors and nurses
will need to use RFID and other sensor technologies to keep tabs on them
more frequently.
It is unknown whether the elderly will accept this high level of
electronic supervision.
Both the Caregiver's Assistant and the Memory Mirror read RFID-tagged
items to keep track of their subjects. By placing the tags on items
around the home, health-care workers can tell whether and when a patient
has taken aspirin or prepared a cup of tea.
RFID tags, some as small as a postage stamp, emit a weak radio signal
that can be picked up by RFID reader devices.
Intel's study uses a portable RFID reader smaller than a deck of cards,
which is attached to the back of an individual's hand. (Intel said it
hopes to see seniors wearing bracelet-sized RFID readers in the future.)
Georgia Tech's Memory Mirror uses RFID readers attached to medicine
cabinet shelves and beneath counters.
RFID tags and readers are already controversial. Privacy advocates worry
that retailers and government spies might track consumers by following
the signals emitted by their RFID-tagged purchases. They also worry the
technology could infringe on the privacy of seniors in their own homes.
RFID tag monitoring will make it hard for seniors to slip shots of
whiskey into their teacups or sneak sweets banned from their diets
without being detected, said a privacy advocate.
"Say you're a diabetic," said Chris Hoofnagle, associate director of the
Washington, D.C.-based Electronic Privacy Information Center. "You might
want to eat that piece of cake and not tell your doctor about it. With
this technology, you might not be able to get away with it."
In the Caregiver's Assistant and Memory Mirror projects, RFID tags are
affixed to medicine bottles, teacups, milk bottles and other objects
regularly used in the home.
The Caregiver's Assistant reasons that an individual is making a cup of
tea when it records that an individual wearing a reader has picked up a
kettle, a box of tea and a carton of milk, for example.
The Memory Mirror does less thinking: It displays, in a time line on a
computer screen, an image of an item, such as a medicine bottle, after
it has been picked up and returned to a reader shelf.
Both Georgia Tech and Intel are carefully designing their plans for the
RFID systems to ensure their test subjects' privacy in the coming
months. (Intel plans to test the Caregiver's Assistant and its display
system, called Carnet, with 15 seniors over a three-week period.)
"The portable reader for the Caregiver's Assistant can be switched on
and off by the wearer," said Intel researcher Sunny Convolve. "The
person wearing it is in full control of whether they want to be
monitored at any given time."
Georgia Tech researcher Quean Tran said the Memory Mirror only records a
person's activities for the individual's personal use. It can also help
couples avoid repeating tasks that one partner has already performed.
"If one partner has already fed the fish, then the other can see that on
the Memory Mirror display," said the researcher.
Epic's Hoofnagle said that RFID monitoring systems can benefit seniors,
but only if patients are fully aware they are being watched and their
actions recorded. Someone with Alzheimer's disease, for example, may be
incapable of making an informed decision about being tracked.
"If a person is not able to make that choice for himself," said
Hoofnagle, "than you're acting as a digital nanny, which is something
many people don't want."