Persuasive sensing: a novel in-home monitoring technology to assist elderly adult diabetic patients

Diabetes mellitus is a common but serious chronic disease that kills thousands of patients worldwide each year. While there are several useful regimens that can be followed to manage the disease, elderly adult patients have particular difficulties in self-managing the disease. In this paper we present a novel approach to self-management --- persuasive sensing --- that uses environmental and body-wearable sensors that continuously detects activities and physiological parameters. Our system sends persuasive text messages and a weekly health newsletter aimed to alter the subject's behavior. We present the findings from an in-home monitoring implementation. The results obtained are quite encouraging. We discuss the challenges and lessons learned from such a field experiment and how we can improve upon the technology.