Marty Martin and his wife, who live in Buford, Ga., like to take a cruise once or twice a year, but Martin worries about his 92-year-old mother, who lives in Sarasota - alone.

But for more than a year, her home has been wired with a new passive sensor system called Quiet- Care. The half-dozen sensors placed in her home measure her daily activities; if they detect that her routine has varied significantly, an alert goes out to people watching monitors in a central location.

The system has been "a real, real help, " Martin said. "I feel better about leaving her alone because it tells me on a daily basis that she's okay." He has not been notified of any concerns about his mother.

This sort of monitoring is especially important to Martin because an elderly aunt, who lived alone and had no monitoring system, fell in her bedroom and could not call for help. She was later found dead.

QuietCare was developed by a pair of geriatrics physicians who were caring for an aging parent living alone. The goal was to design a system "without infringing on privacy, " explains John Kintz, regional sales manager for TSI Distribution in Sarasota. The system is currently being tested at a Dunedin assisted living facility.

"No cameras. No Big Brother. It utilizes wireless sensors that are placed strategically in the person's home, " he said.

Sensors measure heat

After being placed, the sensors monitor a range of body heat within each room and report these readings to a small base unit in the home, usually placed out of sight, perhaps under the bed. The base unit sends updates every two hours to a monitoring station in either New York or Illinois.

A pattern of behavior for the client is established within 10 days of the installation, and this is programmed into the monitoring station computer.

Whenever the resident varies significantly from that pattern, an alert is sent out. Variations can include increased trips to the bathroom at night, failure to take prescription medication at the same time, failure to open the refrigerator door as often, Kintz said.

The QuietCare system also has a built-in thermometer that constantly checks whether the residence is becoming too hot or too cold. For an elderly person, hypothermia can set in even at a room temperature of 65, Kintz said.

"The computer looks at the baseline and then it compares with the current sensor data, " he said.

Typically, about six monitors are placed in a home. "The sensors are pretty much immune to the heat of a pet, " Kintz explained. "What the sensor is looking for is the infrared heat change in the room, but it's got to be a significant change."

If sensors are installed in a residence with a large pet, say 100 pounds, the sensors can be aimed to monitor the heat only above a certain height from the floor.

Yellow or red alerts

The family member or person who subscribes to the service for the live-alone sets up a system for being alerted to any changes. These alerts can be via e-mail, phone, even text messaging to a cell phone "that would tell them Mom's routine is off and they need to follow up, " Kintz said.

That would constitute what QuietCare calls a yellow alert.

"If Mom goes to the bathroom at 3 a.m. and doesn't come out after an hour, " Kintz continued, that's a red alert. Most falls by seniors in a home occur in the bathroom, he said.

When the computer that compares activity with the baseline detects an alert, an alarm central station is notified, similar to many home security monitoring systems.

There have been medical-alert monitoring systems on the market for years. Many of them involve a "panic button" the user can push in case of an emergency. QuietCare, however, uses a newer technology in which passive sensors monitor body heat rather than motion.

"This system, once installed, doesn't require any interaction on the part of the senior. It's (technically) intuitive. All it's looking for is data from the sensors."

The buyer of the sensor system provides QuietCare with a list of people or emergency response providers to notify in case of an alert. This could be a neighbor, EMS or a relative living nearby.

The caregiver can also access a comprehensive report from a Web site, pulling up current data and the past seven days of activity, Kintz said, to see if anything is out of the norm.

"The whole point of this system is to allow seniors to live at home longer, " Kintz said. "Nobody wants to go into assisted living. They want to maintain their independence as long as possible."

For homes or facilities

There are an estimated 500 to 600 individual QuietCare systems in place nationwide, Kintz said. The cost of installation is $399, with a 24-hour-a-day monitoring fee of $149.95 a month.

The system is also used increasingly in assisted living facilities.

Mease Manor in Dunedin, for example, is experimenting with the sensors in six of its units.

"We like the concept, " Mease administrator Mary Kay Klinge said. "We believe they're really on the cutting edge."

The trial at Mease Manor will last about six months. If it goes well, the facility may expand the system into all 250 independent living apartments and 106 assisted living units.

Any alert goes first to the facility's nursing station, she said. "I think this is what we're looking to in the future. We decided we wanted to be one of the front-runners."

Fred. W. Wright Jr. is a freelance writer living in St. Petersburg.

QuietCare

QuietCare is thought to be the only heat sensor of its kind now for sale to the individual consumer. For more information, contact TSI Distribution, 6185 Danner Drive, Sarasota, FL 34240. Call toll-free 1-866-593-4314 in Florida or (941) 752-1656, go to www.Security-TSI.com or e-mail JKintz@security-tsi.com.

Hot Update!

05/01/07 - Any customer purchasing a QuietCare system will receive a PERS system absolutely free. This comes with no monthly monitoring fee!