Programme: Mechanical / Management / Industrial Engineering, class of 2014. Master of sustainable product service innovation (MSPI), class of 2016

Course: MT2556 Extreme Product Service Innovation

Corporate partner: Blue Science Park and the Karlskrona Municipality

Challenge: A solution that delays the need of help from the home care in Karlskrona

Solution: In the future the population of seniors is expected to grow. This is a problem for the society since the workers will have to take care of more seniors. Therefore a solution that delays the need of help from the home care is necessary. When examine current problems among seniors, the project team found two common safety issues. The first one is that seniors felt more safe when they knew that someone was checking up on them, to know that the person is alright. The second one is that seniors felt more safe if they could contact someone when needed.

The solution was a watch band that have sensors and a button. The sensors will monitor information regarding a person’s health status. The information that will be monitored is body temperature, heart rate, blood pressure, blood sugar and blood oxygen. This to fulfill the first issue. The button will be an emergency button, that the seniors can use to contact someone when needed. This to fulfill the second issue.

Impact: The main impact is the reduced help that is needed by the home care for the seniors. The home care don’t need to go to a senior to check their physical health status. Nor does the senior need to go to a hospital to check their values. By using C-Connect the senior can be anywhere he or she wants and the home care can monitor from a distance.

Other impacts are the feelings of safety. By using the band the senior will know that someone is watching their health. This together with the emergency button can encourage seniors to not limit their social lives due to fear of that something bad will happen to them.

Prototypes: A prototype watch band was build to try two types of sensors as well as the button. This prototype were coded in the Arduino software. The two sensors that was included in the prototype was the heart rate sensor and the body temperature sensor. Since the other sensors wasn’t received, there were limitations of what was being tested.

What we have learnt from testing the prototype is that seniors don’t want to rely on technology. In general many seniors aren’t experienced in this area and therefore it can make them afraid if they have to rely on it. But at the same time seniors can feel safe by knowing that someone check their physical health and by being able to contact someone if needed.

Quotes from sponsor/partner: The feedback from the partners, and the target group, was positive. The feedback says the idea is a step in the right direction. Since the feedback from these stakeholders are positive a continuation would be desired. Therefore, the next step for the project would be to investigate in which companies that can supply the band. However, a step that must be taken before that is to get a greater knowledge about the appreciation among seniors. This due to the contradiction.

Project team:

• Matteo Persico, Management Engineering, class of 2014
• Erik Lindström, Mechanical Engineering, class of 2014
• Michelle Svensson, Mechanical Engineering, class of 2014
• Bahram Ghandchi, Master of sustainable product service innovation (MSPI), class of 2016
• Johannes Bäckerås, Industrial Engineering and Management, class of 2014

BTH contact

• Christian Johansson Askling, cmj@bth.se.