Monitoring Wandering Behavior of Persons Suffering from Dementia Using BLE Based Localization System

With the aging of our populations, dementia will become a problem which would directly or indirectly affect a large number of people. One of the most dangerous dementia symptoms is wandering. It consists in aimless walking and spatial disorientation, which might lead to various unpleasant situations like falling down accidents at home to leaving the living place and going missing. Therefore, in order to ensure elderly people's safety it is crucial to detect and alarm the caregivers in case of such incidents. It can be done by tracking the sufferers movements and detecting signs of repetitiveness. The paper presents the results of the study, in which the wandering behavior of people suffering from dementia was monitored using a Bluetooth Low Energy based positioning system. The paper includes the description of the system used for patients localization and the results of the tests performed in a long term care facility.