MySafeWC - Dehydration trends on the toilet
The basis of assistive products such as “iToilet” with integrated nursing documentation could be expanded sensibly and innovatively by further methods of data analysis in the daily use of toilets.
Project Homepage: https://www.aat.tuwien.ac.at/mysafewc
Team: Peter Mayer, Paul Panek
By intelligently assessing body water levels across the toilet seat, but also through usage statistics and other parameters, the safety of autonomously living elderly users alone could be improved by early detection of the trend towards dehydration and deviant behavior, or by remembering the toilet visit. Together with users and supervisors, the project aimed to identify practical requirements and assess the risk and market prospects of a product or a necessary implementing R & D project through laboratory simulation of appropriate technologies.
The project was successfully completed. On July 30th, 2020 the presentation of the results of a laboratory prototype of MySafeWC took place in a virtual workshop with the “Haus St. Barbara” of Caritas. The built prototype contains sensors integrated into a toilet seat for measuring body impedance, ECG, temperature and pulse, oxygen saturation and delivers values comparable to standard measurements in laboratory tests. The technical, economic and ethical findings developed together with experts are documented in the final report.