Unique patient assistance system

A team of BTech (final year) students comprising Aman Gupta, Vivek Chauhan, Mayank Verma, Lalit Yadav and Ishan Nayak has developed an IoT (Internet of Things)-based patient assistance system that can help the attendants to better understand the requirements of the patients. The system will help patients suffering from dementia, paralysis or other severe physical disability. Such patients are generally not capable of speaking or using any signs to describe their needs to their attendants. The team of students from mechatronics branch at Chandigarh University has developed a gesture-based sensor technology that can be attached to a patient’s hand to provide notifications to the attendants to convey message like pain,  need for water or food or going to the washroom etc. 

“The idea came when we visited a hospital where I saw a paralytic patient who could not speak asking for water and there was no one to look after him”, said Mayunk. 

The system has been designed with some pre-stored gestures (currently up to 4) along with IoT board, gesture sensors, power circuits, wi-fi  nodules, LCD screen speaker for emergency and the system can also with attached to voice based online systems such as Google Alexa. 

Currently, the device costs aroundt Rs 5,000,  but the team is working on reducing the cost by developing a server-based model where multiple devises can be attached.  

While explaining the working of the system, Vivek Chauhan said, “One of the main tasks of the IoT Patient Assistant System is to monitor a patient’s needs besides storing  important statistics like heartbeat level, BP, blood sugar etc”. 

“Another feature of the system is that it comes integrated with an automatic water feeding system where water is slowly dripped into the patient’s mouth as soon as it gets a command from them”, added Lalit Yadav.           

It took the innovators 4-5 months to develop the system and test it in real time situation. The students have filed a patent for the system and will try to enhance its capability with time.  — TNS