Stay in Touch is an Android app you can download from the market and run on an Amazon Kindle Fire or any other Android tablet. It can be updated from your home computer so you do not have to fiddle with it when you visit. Brings the elderly person into contact with family, offers the whole Internet and apps and pages you think she will like.
The Android tablet sits on the chairside table like a digital picture frame, offering a changing view of family photos and buttons to call up the other fucctions.

An elderly person at home can use the power of a low-cost Android tablet computer to satisfy several needs. Ours has been implemented to do three main things.

a) Provide a picture frame to show family photos in an ever-changing stream. A son or friend can upload these pictures from his home office and the older person will start to see them page slowly by after the nightly maintenance run.

b) Pill Reminder. The picture frame is enough to earn the Android tablet a place on the table next to his chair. The pills button starts to flash when it is the right time to take the pills. If the old person does not press the button to acknowledge the scheduling notification for an hour, then an email is sent to the carer. This pill reminder is perhaps the main purpose for the device, and the family photos and the other functions are merely a frame to support this pill reminder function. Again the son or friend can manage the pills schedule from his computer.

c) Android apps and the infinity of the Web. Just behind the Main Screen is a set of buttons which will run Android Apps these can be downloaded from the Android Market, often for free. They deal with many aspects of life... Kindle for reading books, Skype for making phone calls from the Android, Google Maps for exploring geography, and some for health monitoring, others to tease the imagination.
Some of the buttons will point to a web page. Craigslist for buying a walker or a ...sofa?, ALZ-locate to check where you are if you go out (sign on as 'demo' password 'demo' to try it out!, Reuters for business news, WebMD for checking your symptoms, Scrabble Play a game of Scrabble with a lady in Australia!, YouTube Music for every taste, and all sorts of other things.

Remote Updating from a PC
The real key to making such a service work at an affordable price is the ability of a family member to update the medications list, to add family photos or add new Skype contacts. This can be done smoothly through this web page from any location, you need to register first, of course.

Social specifications.
The System is designed to provide something continuously interesting to look at and is intended to be on the table next to the chair of the elderly person. The family photos and news (twitter feed or email feed across the bottom of the screen) as well as orientation data about the day and time are to provide reassurance. The Pill reminder is on the front screen. The programs installed by the caring relative will reflect the needs and interests of the person.
It is expected that a family member will visit and occasionally “tidy up” the email inbox and delete old txt messages etc.

Technical Specifications.
The system works over a wide range of equipment from a cell phone to a large tablet, or notebook/laptop computer running the Android system. It really makes sense only on a tablet. We have tested the 7 and 8 inch tablets as well as the 10 inch ones. Our impression is that the smaller ones are better. They are easy to handle and can be used for reading novels and other e-books.
It will work in a WiFi-only setting to reduce the weekly cost (maybe a neighbor will donate the small amount of needed bandwidth?) or in less connected areas the regular cell phone service can be used equally well, but it is more expensive.
It can be managed from the screen itself, using the web browser on the tablet, or remotely on a home computer.
During update operations the old person will NOT need to do ANYTHING, no button pushes, no power-down and restart, no nothing! It will happen at night quietly by itself, automatically. (There is an exception for installing new apps from the market...someone has to press the Install button and agree to the permissions, and maybe pay!)
The Android will be continuously connected to the mains power, as the screen uses a lot of energy.

Keeping the Android app running.
Sometimes people make mistakes with computers, and it’s usually easy to fix, if you happen to know how. If you don’t know then it is mysterious and frustrating. Every effort has been made to make Stay in Touch run smoothly and correctly, but the operator can make mistakes, and for example press the back button one more time than is needed and back right out of the program. Sometimes the power will get unplugged and the battery will drain.
The app Stay in Touch Retart, which is part of the main program. corrects these two problems. If the program stops, or has not started since a power down, then it will start the Stay in Touch program automatically in a few minutes. It is recommended for installation in a tablet, plugged in all the time. Note the Amazon Kindle Fire has some non-standard behavior and after a power up you need to slide away the lock screen. Most standard Androids will power-up running the Stay in Touch app.
If you are testing the Stay in Touch app on your phone, then be careful! This app will keep running and needs to be stopped or uninstalled before it drains your battery!

Contact info (@) android-tele-health.com