Multimodal Sensor System for Continuous Monitoring in Elderly Care: A Pilot Study

The growing prevalence of chronic health conditions in aging populations highlights the need for innovative solutions in rehabilitation and long-term care. We propose a multimodal system designed to automatically classify Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) and, in the future, support the prevention of secondary health conditions in institutionalized elderly individuals. This system continuously integrates six commercially available wearable and nearable sensors to monitor ADLs over two weeks, ensuring data completeness and maintaining high data quality throughout the trial. In this study, we present pilot data from two residents of a Japanese elderly care facility, demonstrating the proposed system's feasibility and usability. The collected data was comprehensive and robust, with residents showing strong acceptance of the wearable and nearable technologies for long-term use. These findings underscore the potential of multimodal sensory systems to enhance rehabilitation strategies by enabling continuous health monitoring. Integrating ADLs monitoring into rehabilitation programs may facilitate early detection of health changes and support personalized interventions, building on the success of digital health tracking in other clinical domains.