Alzheimer's patient tracking system

• US 7,825,794 B2
• Filed: 08/10/2007
• Issued: 11/02/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 08/10/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: MobileHelp, LLC
• Original Assignee: Integrity Tracking LLC
• Inventors: Janetis, Elias M., Pasanen, Ernest F.
• Primary Examiner(s): Lee; Benjamin C
• Assistant Examiner(s): Pham; Lam P
• Application Number:
  US11/891,377
• Publication Number:
  US 20090040041A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,180 Days
• Field of Search: 340/539.13, 340/539.2, 340/572.1, 340/573.1, 340/995.1, 4554561-4566, 455/457
• US Class Current: 340/539.13
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/0027 of actual mobile position, i.e. position determined on mobile
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/0294 Trajectory determination or predictive filtering, e.g. target tracking or Kalman filtering
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/0277 Communication between units on a local network, e.g. Bluetooth, piconet, zigbee, Wireless Personal Area Networks [WPAN]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/0241 where no transmission is received, e.g. out of range of the transmitter
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/70 in wireless communication networks

Abstract

The computerized system provides a method to track Alzheimer'"'"'s patients and other diseases that affect the patient'"'"'s ability to contact and communicate their location or vital information to their caregivers. The system applies an electronic tag to each patient of a multiplicity of patients or only to non-confined patients and employs a computer to maintain information about their location and well being. Use is made of a global positioning system to locate a lost patient as well as to track movements of the patient. A history of the movement of the patient may also be plotted on a map. Additional components of the tag gather and relay information about the patient'"'"'s condition and other environmental data. In addition, the use of a an additional external transmitter keeps the wearable tag in a low power “sleep” mode when it is in range, preserving the internal battery and only consuming power when the tag moves out of range of the external transmitter.

Claims

1. A tracking system process for locating a monitored individual comprising the steps of:

a) affixing a wearable electronic first tag to the individual, said first tag including a wireless transceiver for communication over a public communications network, a GPS receiver for receiving location related information from a global positioning system, a microprocessor for performing on board calculations and transferring data from said GPS receiver to said transceiver, and firmware in said microprocessor for processing instructions for operation of said transceiver, said GPS receiver and said microprocessor communicating with the communications network, wherein an additional Bluetooth module is incorporated into said first tag that communicates to other commercially available Bluetooth devices using the industry standard Bluetooth standard protocol and wherein an additional internal transmitter and receiver are incorporated into each of said first tag and a second tag associated with a caregiver which works in concert with said first tag, said transmitter and receiver using an industry standard RFID Zigbee protocol module with incorporated microprocessor;

b) delivering an electronic signal from a remote location via a global positioning system to said transceiver on the individual to activate said first tag to receive location related information from the global positioning system and to transmit using the wireless transceiver a location signal directly from said GPS receiver indicative of the location of the said individual to said remote location; and

c) providing a FLASH memory within said electronic tag for tracking the location of the individual over a period of time and delivering corresponding information from said firmware to said remote location to display the path of travel of the individual over time;

wherein said first tag is suppressed from transmitting its coordinates when in range of the second RFID Zigbee tag, to greatly extend the battery life of the said first tag by placing it in a low power mode, and when said first tag is physically moved out of a predetermined range of the second tag, the first tag switches into a full power mode, and begins transmitting the GPS coordinates of the individual over the public communication network.

2. A tracking system process according to claim 1 which operates in part over a wireless network wherein a custom firmware package is incorporated into the FLASH memory of the said first tag that will gather information from its integral Bluetooth device from other commercial devices that can measure at least one of heart-rate, body temperature, and other remote sensing devices, which information is processed by the said tag and sent via the wireless network.

3. A tracking system process according to claim 1 which uses custom firmware incorporated into FLASH memory provided in a RFID Zigbee module to permits it to interact with other commercial Zigbee devices mounted within a building to allow tracking of individuals at low cost without using a public wireless communications network.

4. A tracking system process according to claim 1 which operates in part over a public wireless network and which utilizes the public Internet for collecting data from at least one of the public wireless network and in-building RFID systems and preserves data collected from the GPS system and by the Bluetooth module by a software system that preserves the data in a database and permits viewing the individual'"'"'s current location and other vital data via a web-based application that permits caregivers the ability to directly access this data by at least one of the public Internet and via telephone to a human operated call center.

5. A tracking system process according to claim 4 wherein an alert system is incorporated that notifies caregivers of at least one of activation of the said tag and of actionable information from said tag in the form of email, pager messages or SMS message via a cell phone carried by the caregiver.

6. A tracking system process according to claim 4 wherein commands from said software system are issued to the said first tag to cause it to transmit immediately, or to change a frequency of transmission and content of the first tag data.

7. A tracking system process according to claim 1 which operates in part with telemetry from a BlueTooth module and a local RFID (Zigbee) network wherein firmware is used to transfer location data from the GPS receiver, and telemetry from the BlueTooth module, and wherein said tracking process uses an algorithm to move this data over the local RFID (Zigbee) network, or via terrestrial radio.

8. A tracking system process according to claim 7 wherein, to maintain battery power over a long period of time, a combination of various hardware power switches, power monitoring circuitry and firmware switches power to the terrestrial radio, Bluetooth module, RFID and GPS receiver to reduce overall power consumption.

9. A tracking system process according to claim 7 wherein firmware provides the ability to track the first tag within a building using only the RFID Zigbee network.

10. A tracking system according to claim 1 wherein said individual is human.

11. A tracking system according to claim 10 wherein said individual is human suffering with Alzheimer'"'"'s syndrome or other illness impairing their ability to seek help on their own.

12. A tracking system according to claim 1 wherein said individual is an animal.

13. A tracking system according to claim 1 wherein said individual is an inanimate object.