Design of a Real-Time Heart Rate Monitoring and Alert System for Elderly Residents in Care Homes in Anambra State

Elderly residents in care homes and assisted living facilities in Anambra State, South East Nigeria, are at elevated risk from cardiac events that may go undetected during nighttime hours when staff supervision is reduced. This project designed a real-time heart rate monitoring and alert system for elderly residents, transmitting continuous heart rate data wirelessly to a nurse monitoring station. A MAX30100 optical heart rate sensor was integrated with an ESP32 microcontroller worn in a wristband. Heart rate readings were computed onboard using a peak detection algorithm and transmitted via WiFi to an MQTT broker. A Node-RED dashboard displayed all resident heart rates simultaneously on a ward monitoring screen. Configurable alert thresholds triggered visual and audible alarms when heart rate fell below 50 or exceeded 130 beats per minute. The system was validated with 10 volunteers aged 55 to 75 years, comparing readings against a certified Nonin 3120 pulse oximeter. Mean absolute error across 2,400 measurement comparisons was 3.1 beats per minute. Alert trigger accuracy was 100 percent for induced bradycardia and tachycardia conditions in controlled testing. WiFi range within the test care home building was reliable up to 18 metres. Wristband battery life was 16 hours on a 350 mAh LiPo battery. The study recommends adding SpO2 monitoring to the wristband and implementing machine learning-based arrhythmia detection to replace simple threshold alerting, improving clinical specificity for atrial fibrillation detection.

Keywords: heart rate monitoring, elderly care, IoT health, Anambra State, wearable sensor