BuzzTag: An assistive wearable device for Alzheimer

patients using RFID technology

C.Bhargavram
SVCE
Chennai, India

Abstract This paper endeavors to create a wearable band,

BuzzTag, in order to reduce total dependency of the Alzheimers
disease affected person on the caretaker in the initial stages of
the disease. The Buzztag's can be used to track the patients
activities remotely. It can also direct the users to remember
certain activities such as taking pills in the correct time. The
caretaker in any remote corner within the house or otherwise can
regularly monitor their routine without much hindrance in their
chores. The band has various other features as discussed further

Keywords : RFID Reader and tag, Activity tracking.

I. INTRODUCTION
Alzheimer's is a neurological disorder in which the death
of brain cells causes memory loss and cognitive decline. A
neurodegenerative type of dementia that starts mild and get
progressively worse. The causes of the disease are said to
be genetic, history of head injuries and depression or
hypertension, plaques and tangles in the brain. Shortage of
some chemicals in the brain which helps to transmit signals
around the brain etc. The RFID technology can play an
important role as the tags are placed onto the day to day
objects of the patients. It sets an alarm if the task is about
to be repeated or if the person crosses a certain boundary.

II. EXISTING TECHNOLOGY

The work related to Buzz tag falls into two classes. First,
there is the recent surge of commercial electronic bracelets [6].
Some of the applications that are supported by these bracelets
include monitoring daily exercise [5], medical conditions [7] or
social awareness [8][9]. Unlike Buzz tag, commercial bracelets
typically only support a fixed, predefined set of applications. A
second category of related work is the research projects that
make use of RFID tags and mobile devices. One project
closely related to Buzz tag is ReachMedia [10], an RFID
bracelet that offers just-in time information during a shopping
experience. A project by Jukka [19] connects visual symbols
(RFID tagged) to activate a service when the user reads one of
the tags using his mobile phone. Each tag offers a
preconfigured service for all the end-users of the system. RFID
technology has also been used to track objects [11][12] or
actions of the wearer. Some example applications are On
Object [13], a ring that programs toys using gestural
movements and RFID tags and RFID Glove [14], a system that
recognizes actions performed by the wearer in order to
increase the efficiency of work patterns. In

K.Preethi
SVCE
Chennai, India

shopping experiences, the fitting rooms have been equipped

with RFID readers that detect each piece of clothing and
provide recommendations to the user [15].The information
provided by real objects is limited by their intrinsic
characteristics. In Roy Wants pioneering research, RFID
technology was used to create interfaces that extend the
physical limitations of everyday objects with virtual content [16]
or with RFID sensors [17]. Query Lens [18] is another related
project, which uses RFID tags to identify objects and enable
users to share information about those objects in the form of
FAQ lists. Buzz tag differs from all of the project mentioned
above by (1) being focused on easy use and creation of rules
by an end-user and (2) by being focused on enabling the
creation of personally meaningful social and emotional
interactions in the users personal environment.

III. IMPLEMENTATION
RFID stands for Radio-Frequency Identification. The
RFID device serves the same purpose as a bar code or
a magnetic strip on the back of a credit card .It provides
a unique identifier for that object. And, just as a bar code
or magnetic strip must be scanned to get the
information, the RFID device must be scanned to
retrieve the identifying information.
In our project we would be using RFID readers, to
create a specific interrogation zone which can be tightly
controlled, and tags, a radio-frequency identification system
uses tags, or labels attached to the objects to be identified.
This allows a highly defined reading area for when tags go
in and out of the interrogation zone. The RFID reader is
placed inside a custom designed wrist band and the tags
are placed onto different kinds of objects such as coffee
mug, medic box, entrances and exits.

was at 9:30a.m. But the threshold time for coffee is set 5hrs
from the previous time. So it sends out a voice signal saying
that user has taken coffee. Similarly various threshold times
have been allotted for various activities. Depending on the
Threshold times, the commands would be set out.

As we can see in table 3.1, each object such as coffee mug,

medical box and two doors D1 and D2 have RFID tags attached to
them. Each tag has a unique id and it has been programmed to
represent a particular object. The coffee mug and medical box are
used for monitoring purposes, that is if the task is being repeated
again. The tags attached to door are

used for location a purpose, which is if the patient

crosses the boundary allotted to him, the caretakers
would be notified about it.

OBJECT
MEDICAL
BOX
COFFEE
MUG
DOOR1
DOOR2

ID
USAGE
098G878AB MONITORING
PURPOSE
098F654AA MONITORING
PURPOSE
078R878CD LOCATION
PURPOSE
098T865DF LOCATION
PURPOSE

Table 3.2

IV. IMPLEMENTATION

The experimental results show that the wearable device

detects the tags on various objects and conveys the message
accordingly. The pilot experimental results are shown below

Table 3.1 RFID Tag matching

Once the tag is detected by RFID reader it sends the signal

to the microcontroller. The microcontroller goes through the
previous data and cross checks if the data was repeated
previously or not. If the data is repeated it checks the time
elapsed between the previous time it was done and the current
time. If the time elapsed is less than the threshold time, it
sends a voice message saying the task was repeated. As we
can see it table 3.2, the first time Coffee mug was detected at
an interval of 9:00 a.m. and the second time it was detected

The threshold
time is kept as
7.5 seconds for

medicines.

The threshold time for coffee is

kept as 3.5seconds.

SCALE:1000ms=2hours

V. FUTURE WORK
The future work includes accelerometer. Using
accelerometer we can get to know if the person is
walking, running or has fallen down.
Along with the above we have behavioral pattern
monitoring system that is it pops out a question at regular
intervals of time. If the patient is not able to answer the
question, the threshold rate of the question would be reduced.

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persons disease is increasing. So we would be able to
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