Apparatus for monitoring and signalling system

Abstract

Apparatus for a monitoring and signalling system such as a home health care system. The system includes a remote control unit in the residence of an individual and interconnected with a centralized communications center by a telephone network. A plurality of sensors located within the residence of the individual operate to monitor the occurrence of particular activities performed by the individual and to produce signals in response to monitoring the occurrence of the activities. A microprocessor in the remote control unit receives and processes signals produced by the sensors and accumulates sensor activity data representing a running tally of the number of times each sensor has monitored its associated activities. On a daily basis, the sensor activity data is transmitted to the centralized communications center. A disc storage unit at the communications center stores sensor presence data therein specifying the presence of each of the sensors within the system. A computer at the communications center examines the sensor activity data readout from the remote control unit and the sensor presence data for each of the sensors stored in the disc unit and operates if the sensor activity data corresponding to any of the sensors specified to be present in the system by the data in the disc unit indicates that the sensor has not monitored its associated activity since the last readout of data from the remote control unit to produce an output condition. This output condition may be used to derive a hard-copy printout for maintenance purposes.