Monitoring System for Patients with Cognitive Impairment Using Mobile Devices

The identification, monitoring, tracking and locating of patients with cognitive impairment in healthcare institutions has always been a serious problem for these institutions. Most solutions adopted until today rely mainly on human resources and on very simple manual techniques, like, e.g., putting stickers on the patients' clothes. This paper addresses this problem describing a software solution based on the use of mobile devices, as smartphones, smartwatches, and identification tags all linked to an information system. This work was done in close collaboration with a national public rehabilitation hospital center to really understand the underlying problems, to identify the main requirements and challenges, and to help in the testing and validation process. The final prototype demonstrated the viability of the solution and that it could be deployed in a real set-up without significant effort.