# An Intelligent Healthcare System for Residential Aged Care during the COVID-19 Pandemic
## 1 Introduction  
The aging index is the ratio of the elderly (economically inactive and aged 65 and over) to young people (aged 0 to 14). Statistics in Taiwan show that the aging index has spiraled from 49.3 (2005) to 107.9 (2018) (see Ministry of the Interior, Department of Statistics, [[https://www.moi.gov.tw/stat/chart.aspx](https://www.moi.gov.tw/stat/chart.aspx)]([https://www.moi.gov.tw/stat/chart.aspx](https://www.moi.gov.tw/stat/chart.aspx)), accessed on 1 November 2022), which is higher than it is in many other developed countries. In addition, though some elderly people with a chronic disease living in Taiwan have doctor or caregiver support in a nursing home. However, in times of the COVID-19 epidemic, most sub-healthy elderly people (ShEP) live alone and frequently go outside to keep their distance from others in their daily activities, exposing themselves to a high level of risk for falls, sudden illness, and accidents [1]. During the COVID-19 pandemic, new risk environment variables for falls have emerged. The first environmental variable may be that the pandemic could increase the risk of caregivers. For example, if the family members of caregivers test positive for COVID-19, they have to remain at home, leading the elderly they care for to be lonely at home. The second variable needed to be taken into consideration could be whether the family members of elderly people themselves test positive or whether the infection of colleagues leads to family members staying at home, which also increases the length of isolation for the elderly. The third aspect is that elderly people themselves increase the risk of infection because their resistance is weak, so they become more seriously ill or take longer to recover than the average person. The existing protection process of government regulations for the home isolation system never considered the issues mentioned above,it only took into account the spread of the virus and did not consider that these isolation measures would cause these elderly individuals to fall prey to higher levels of risk. Based on the new risk factors created by the pandemic, these past methods of preventing falls in elderly people have produced significant changes that cannot be easily dealt with. Falls are among the biggest dangers to ShEP and encompass any instance in which an elderly person loses their balance or trips over something, especially during outside activities. In Asia, over half of the injuries to senior citizens (over the age of 65) come from falls and can have serious consequences [2; 3]. For example, a fall can result in a bump to the head that, if left untreated, can lead to permanent brain damage [1; 4]. Therefore, detecting accidents and reacting quickly is very important. ShEP are an especially vulnerable group since they may not demonstrate typical pathologic symptoms or may express discomfort without any diagnosable or obvious illnesses. These common occurrences demonstrate that traditional standard medical observation methods are not suitable for ShEP [4]. Consequently, more needs to be undertaken for this vulnerable group. Research on fall detection for ShEP care is still rare. Family members and caregivers can call and ask questions regarding an elderly person's activities, but it is difficult to know the risk for falls without being physically present [5]. Important context, such as location, has to be gathered in order to determine the risk level [6]. Although some technologies, such as an activity calendar, can provide us some information about whether or not ShEP are undertaking dangerous activities; however, those tools require caregivers and family members to maintain constant contact with ShEP and guess whether or not they are in danger. The methods could be ineffective and do not address the problem of dynamic human variability. The first research question: in times of the COVID-19 epidemic, what is the relationship between dynamic risk factors and falls?